When I try to be patient on my own, my patience is forced and short-lived. It is obvious to everyone that I am desperately trying to be patient.
Interpretation
True patience is a natural quality that cannot be forced. Trying to be patient through sheer will often leads to failure and frustration.
This quote by Mother Angelica highlights the difference between genuine patience and the forced kind. When we attempt to be patient without truly embodying that quality, it often becomes apparent to others, and our struggle can undermine our efforts. Instead of relying solely on our willpower, we should cultivate patience from a place of understanding and acceptance, allowing it to develop naturally.
In practice
In a self-help speech, someone might refer to this quote to emphasize the importance of self-acceptance in the journey of personal growth.
I am not like a pebble on the beach - a grain of sand on the seashore or just one of millions of human beings past, present and future. No, I am a unique human being loved by God as if I were an only child - the only fruit of his creative powers.
I must not permit the evil capabilities of human nature to sour my faith in the tremendous good that is possible despite the frailty of that nature.
The sinner who suddenly realizes God's love for him and then looks at his rejection of that love feels a loss similar to the death of a loved one. A deep void is created in the soul and a loneliness akin to the agony of death.
Our memories are our own, and we cannot blame anything or anyone in the past for any pain dwelling there. If we open the door to them or keep hashing over past incidents in our minds, we have only ourselves to blame.
Man can and does rationalize his sins. He finds reasons for all his weakness, invents excuses that first calm and then deaden his conscience. He blames God, society, education, and environment for his wrong doing.
Love has been defined, analyzed, explained and excused. It has been the cause of wars, feuds, heroism, martyrdom, inordinate passion, and beautiful friendships. It pulls two people of opposite temperaments together into a married state and permits them to live happily. It makes friends understand each other without the necessity of words.
Be patient with all that is uncertain in your heart...do not search for answers, which will not be given: you will not be able to live them, and its importat to live everything.
From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own.
An old man was asked what had robbed him of joy in his life. His reply was, "Things that never happened."
Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.
Much as we wish, not one of us can bring back yesterday or shape tomorrow. Only today is ours, and it will not be ours for long, and once it is gone it will never in all time be ours again. Thou only knowest what it holds in store for us, yet even we know something of what it will hold. The chance to speak the truth, to show mercy, to ease anotherβs burden. The chance to resist evil, to remember all the good times and good people of our past, to be brave, to be strong, to be glad.
Everything hangs on one's thinking.
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