Copyright 1994 by Michael LeFan and College Press Publishing Co.
Copyright 2004 by Michael LeFan. All Rights Reserved. May not be
reproduced in any form without written permission from Michael LeFan.

          As a kid, I loved Popeye cartoons. Remember Wimpy? He was a pro at mooching hamburgers. Because he never had the money for buying a burger, Wimpy was a devotee of the soft touch. With an air of feigned haughtiness he'd promise, "I'll gladly repay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

          It wasn't that Wimpy was cheap. I've thought about this, and Wimpy's real problem was impatience. He was not willing to forego immediate gratification of his hamburger craving in favor of sustained work to earn money for hamburgers at a later time. Wimpy wanted what he wanted--right now.

          In the long hot August of 1954, polio was still a summertime dread all across the U.S. The Salk vaccine wouldn't be available until 1955. Since nobody was certain about how polio was transmitted from person to person, folks lived in a sort of general fear--especially through the summers, which seemed to be the disease's favorite season. Parents kept children at home, swimming pools, movie theaters, and other public places closed, and drinking fountains were dismantled in order to curb the spread of polio. Special polio treatment centers around the nation were full of children and adults who had been infected by this virus. Many patients required iron lung machines to do their breathing for them, since polio had destroyed the nerves which control normal respiration. And in many cases, a new patient had to be placed on an iron lung waiting list--until some other patient died and no longer needed the machine.

          I was eight years old and getting ready for the third grade in August of 1954 when my mother and father learned that what the doctor first diagnosed as "tonsillitis" was actually severe paralytic polio with full respiratory involvement, meningitis, and possibly encephalitis. There was no guarantee that I would live, and if I did it was certain that I'd be almost totally paralyzed. I would be able to breathe only with the aid of one of those iron lungs. Nothing could stop the inroads of the disease which was attacking me. Undoubtedly that was the worst case of "tonsillitis" in medical history. Everyone felt deep compassion for my folks, my four-year-old sister, my two month old brother, and for me, as our family faced this heartbreaking crisis. My dad was minister at what was then the Avenue G Church of Christ in Temple, Texas. The congregation rallied with support, allowing him time away to be with me in the Southwest Poliomyelitis Institute in Houston. Church members helped care for my brother and sister while my parents were frequently away over the following six months of my first hospitalization. In the intervening years, I've talked about this period and the years of subsequent rehabilitation. As my dad, James, once said, "It seemed as though we had three choices. We could curse God for letting this happen to us and look for ways to vent our rage. We could grit our teeth and bear it. Or we could accept what life had brought our way."

          The first choice is fruitless and self-destructive. The second is unproductive and debilitating. The third is the only reasonable way.

          I don't say that in order to impress you. I've done nothing impressive. Rather, like the unprofitable servants of the Scriptures, I've done only what was required of me. I relate the fact only to let you know that I have "credentials" when it comes to speaking about patience.

          Again and again, life forces each of us into situations in which we have these same choices: rage and rebellion, brute endurance, or patient acceptance--the willingness that it be so. The first two, as my father knew and as I've learned, tear us apart and eventually destroy us. The only hope--my only hope--was in patient and creative acceptance. When a building is damaged by floods or storms, the disaster must be accepted before rebuilding can begin. Life's disasters must be dealt with the same way. We must learn to face life's jolting experiences, accepting them patiently as a challenge--and not in supine resignation. Only when we yield to what we're powerless to change--only when we are willing that it be so--can we free ourselves from destructive anger, resentment, and (yes) impatience. It's no use pretending that the painful experience doesn't have us in its grasp. Ignoring it won't make it go away. If we are to live with any sense of purpose and well-being, then there must come a time when we willingly give ourselves to the situation as it is and see what we can do about remodeling it into an inhabitable condition. It's useless to curse our fate. To merely endure it is to live in drudgery. To accept life and to reach for it is the only sensible course.

          This does not mean that we are to fold up like an umbrella, lay our hands in our laps, and stare piously toward heaven while we live as a Mr. Martyr or Poor Pitiful Pearl. Patient acceptance is nothing like that.

          Acceptance is Michelangelo as he walked through the marble quarry, confident that if he could find the right block of marble he could fashion the masterpiece that was in his mind. Other artists had been there before him. They had selected the beautiful, majestic blocks of stone. Michelangelo found only a single, irregular marble monolith. He gazed at the piece, then he accepted it, ordering that this discarded stone be delivered to his shop. For months he chipped and chiseled at this stone, and from that jagged, misshapen hulk he created his masterwork David. "Its outlines," he said later, "were dictated by the imperfections of the block I worked with--the bend of the head, the twist of the body, the arm holding the sling. They were all there in the jagged, irregular piece of rock."

          Not only must we seek to patiently accept the "jagged, irregular piece of rock" which life hands us, we must also develop the ability to celebrate that bequest with thanksgiving. "To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming is the only end of life," said Robert Louis Stevenson. A major cause of failure and unhappiness is our unwillingness to become ourselves--to be who we are--without envy, anger, or resentment. My polio left me totally paralyzed--almost. I needed someone else's help to eat, bathe, dress, and take care of all personal necessities. And I still need that. But as months and years passed, I found that my left leg and foot had movement, even dexterity. It began as a way to entertain myself, but over time I learned to pick up a pencil in my toes and eventually even to scribble with it. The rehabilitation professionals ignored this small capability and focused instead on teaching me to use my arms with the aid of special overhead slings. All of this required that I sit up straight, which was demanding because of my deficient breathing ability (then aided by a chest respirator device called a "shell") and because my back was weak and soon fatigued. I was more comfortable in a reclining position about halfway between sitting up and lying down. This was also the angle at which I could most effectively use my toes. So this tug-of-war went on, my occupational and physical therapists determined that I'd sit up and learn to feed myself with special utensils strapped to my useless hands, and with me equally determined to do things my way using my left foot.

          How the decision was made, I don't know. Nobody that I recall ever said to me "Accept it." But at some point it must have dawned on me that my two rehab options each carried advantages and drawbacks. To sit up and use the arm slings was more "natural," but my abilities would be severely limited. On the other hand, concentrating on the dexterity of my toes offered a fuller range of possibilities even though it was not so "normal."

          At some point I accepted myself as I was, for what I was, even if that didn't fit the therapists' vision of a rehabilitated person. But that was their problem. From that time on, I began developing whatever skills I could get my left foot to perform. I write with the toes of my left foot--I earned a degree in English at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas. And I took all class notes, tests, and did other work using my toes. The choice to concentrate on using my foot has been a happy one. Ability came only when I accepted my disability.

          No matter who we are or what we want to accomplish, we must begin with patient self-acceptance. If we are to fulfill our potential, first we must recognize our limitations. We have to throw off our masks, quit playing roles, and use what we have with genuineness and without excuses. Our lack of perfection doesn't matter. As Jimmy Durante said, "All of us have schnozzles. That is, we are ridiculous in one way or another: if not in our faces, then in our characters, in our minds, or in our habits. When we admit our schnozzles instead of defending them, we begin to laugh and the world laughs with us."

          When we accept ourselves with patience, without feeling envy or anger toward others (including God), we are set free to begin the joyful business of living.

          The Bible frequently refers to the unique roles served by various parts of our bodies. The lowly spleen can't accomplish the marvels of which the hand is capable, but it has no need to envy the hand and its skills. The eye cannot hear like an ear can, but each has its useful function in the body's overall design. Each complements the other. Neither should diversity in the human experience cause us to feel envy, anger, or impatience. Never mind if someone else is more clever, superior, more esteemed, or more useful. What's that to us? Our job is to develop from within the best we have to offer.

          We must accept today patiently. Life is now. Life is today--not in the past or the future. In the words of the song, "Yesterday's gone and tomorrow is out of sight." You want to hear a real cliche? Here it is: What is past is past. Wow! If that's where your regrets, anger, resentments, envies, and pains reside, then let them stay there. Let the past bury its dead. If you have joys, achievements, and happy experiences there, be thankful for them and think about them only so far as they give you joy today. Avoid tinting today blue with reveries of better circumstances and warm relationships which can never be again. Use the sweetness of those events to bless today--not to embitter it.

          And don't lose patience with today in a fever to grasp an achievement you envision for some future time. Too many of us are marking time today in anticipation of a "better day" on some imagined tomorrow. The high schooler will be happy when he or she gets away from the prison wardens posing as parents; the college student will be happy when she has a job and family; the young married person will be happy when he has acquired some of this world's goods; the middle aged person will arrive at happiness when the bills are paid and the kids are grown; and the retiree will be happy when those thoughtless kids let him see the grandchildren more often. And on it goes. It's a mistake to think that life will really begin when....

          As Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, noted, on the street called "By and By" we arrive at the house named "never."

          When we are impatient with today and refuse to accept it as is, we find ourselves in the situation of a persnickety old lady I read about who was boarding a train with her husband. She couldn't seem to get settled. First she put her packages on the seat beside her, then she moved them to the floor, and finally she placed them on the overhead rack. She switched the light on, then off, and then on again. She fiddled with the window shade, and had trouble getting her seat angle properly adjusted. When her husband scolded her, she said, "I want to get set so I can look at the scenery in comfort." Shaking his head, he replied, "We ain't going far, and the scenery will be long gone before you get settled down to look at it."

          That's the way life is too. If you don't enjoy it as it comes to you, you'll never find enjoyment at the end of the trip either.

          Life is here now, right outside the window. Learn to accept it today, in patience, because it won't come again. It's not like television, where if you miss a program you can catch it later in the reruns. Life offers no reruns. It's foolish to live your life in either a nostalgic "One Day" of the past or an impatient "Some Day" in the future. Wisdom realizes that "Today is the day that the Lord hath made." "Now" is ours to experience. Today is all that we actually possess.

          Don't misunderstand. This doesn't mean that we are supposed to abandon responsibility and live in cynical hedonism--eating, drinking, and making merry, for tomorrow we die. No, the attitude we need is one that invites us to live patiently and thankfully in each day. You've heard the old saying that "Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is ready cash; spend it wisely."

          Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Protestant theologian who was murdered at the hands of Hitler's Nazis, wrote in his Letters and Papers from Prison, "It is the mark of a grown-up man, as compared with a callow youth, that he finds his center of gravity wherever he happens to be at the moment, and however much he longs for the object of his desires, it cannot prevent him from staying at his post and doing his duty.... There is a wholeness about the fully grown man which makes him concentrate on the present moment."

          That's what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote, "I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want" (Philippians 4:11, 12 NIV).

          The measure of a mature, content (patient) person is to accept the fiery chapters of life without bitterness or complaint, to make the laughter redeem the tears, and having done it all, to triumph.

          Are you a patient person? Most of us would answer, "I think so--I try to be." But sometimes we carry one image in our mind while the reality is something else.

          Our congregation decided once that we would produce our own pictorial membership directory (big mistake). One of the men had a fine new Polaroid camera, which he set up in one of the church offices. The agreement was that he'd take your picture until he got a photo which satisfied you--none of those driver's license mugshots, thank you. All went reasonably well until this one lady's turn came to be in front of the camera.

          The first picture was too dark, even the photographer could see that. So they made a second picture. This time she felt her hair wasn't right. Okay, so they set up for a third one (after she'd made adjustments to her coiffure, of course). Well, this one had rather harsh, unflattering shadows on her face.

          By the time they'd endured eight snaps of the shutter--thanks to exaggerated wrinkles, off-center poses, and other objections--nerves were fraying a bit. "I don't know why you can't get a good picture," protested the lady.

          "Ma'am," snapped the photographer, "this camera can't take what's not there."

          Do you remember the first time you heard your own voice on a tape recorder? Your immediate reaction was likely to say, "That's not ME. It doesn't sound like me." And it didn't sound like you to you, because the way we hear our own voice is shaped and changed by the anatomy of our own head. But when others hear us, we do sound much like that unfamiliar voice emanating from the recorder. Reality and perception can be quite different.

          Which is why it's one thing to ask you if you're a patient person, and it's quite something else to ask others whether or not you're patient.

          What would your spouse say if asked whether you are a patient person? Your children? Your friends? Fellow workers? Employees or employer? Fellow church members? The answers might surprise you.

          Some folks readily admit to being impatient. They'll warn you, "I have a temper." Then they'll justify it by explaining, "I'm Irish," or "Hey, it's my red hair," or "I had a bad day at the office." They're telling us "I have a foul disposition and you just have to lump it."

          But why should I have to accept that in you? Why should you have to tolerate that in me?

          "It's just the way I am"!

          Isn't that the lamest excuse you ever heard from someone wanting to be like Jesus? A central tenet of the Christian faith is that with the Lord's help we can be changed. If we shrug our shoulders at our impatience and justify ourselves, we are actually trying to hide a defect behind a flimsy excuse. Instead, we should expose our shortcoming in a spirit of penitence to the power of God that works in us (Ephesians 3:21). It's wise to recognize your impatience, but it is foolish to insist that you can do nothing about it. Impatience, anger, and a lack of steadfastness can cost dearly--your happiness, that of others, even your soul.

          Just how patient are we? Can we wait for things to happen on their own good schedule, or are we so impatient for them to happen that we try to hasten them? Impatience is often our greatest enemy, because it makes us so restless that we spoil the very thing we are seeking to attain.

          A person is not born with patience. I wasn't, and I'm pretty sure you weren't either. It is something we must learn. A baby is a terribly impatient creature. We have that old saying about something being "as easy as taking candy from a baby." Did you ever try taking something from a baby? Easy it ain't! You may get it from the baby, but there are loud consequences to contend with.

          It is a mark of immaturity and impatience when a person cannot wait for the greater goals of life and insists on being satisfied with lesser ones. As a rule, a child would rather have a quarter right now than wait for a five dollar bill next Monday. Patience is definitely an acquired taste, a product of God's working in us. Paul tells the Galatian Christians that "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law" (Galatians 5:22, 23 NIV). Patient people pick a sweet fruit.

          People have said to me, "You are the most patient person I've ever known." Usually my response is a simple "Thank You." Inwardly, I'm thinking "Patience, my foot!" I know that they haven't seen all of me. The degree of patience which I'm able to display at this stage of dealing with my disability is not a static quantity. It used to be considerably less, and the level varies even yet--and always will. But it's as if people believe that polio produces patience. The misconception applies to all disabilities, illnesses, and misfortunes. People act as if the card for patience were dealt in the same hand with misfortune. I'm here to tell you that "It ain't necessarily so."

          The Greek origin of our word "patience" implies two ideas: perseverance and endurance. It can mean either a willingness to wait, or continuance in our effort to achieve. Both of these elements should be present in our lives. It's like having moxie, chutzpah, grit.

          Who wants patience anyway? And why? We all need this virtue, in varying degrees, because when we possess it we can live in greater peace--no matter what circumstances come our way. "The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble" (Proverbs 19:23 NIV).

          Let's explore some ways to develop and strengthen this thing called patience, which Chrysystom called "The Queen of the Virtues." Remember, if you want it, then patience is only a matter of time.

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