The Patience Song

Last year, I made up a little song to help me teach little 2 1/2 year-old Gabriel about patience, and I posted it in the kitchen, where he would get impatient a lot when waiting on meal and snack times.

Whenever Gabe got a little cranky, I would say, “Oh, sounds like you’re having trouble being patient right now! Let’s sing our Patience Song together while we wait for me to finish getting dinner ready for you.” About 75% of the time, I could redirect him pretty successfully by singing this catchy little song with him a couple of times. If I needed extra time, I would start to prompt him about all of the things he was thankful for that day, i.e. friends, Daddy, going to park, Jesus, etc.

The melody is the one from “Brother John/Frere Jacques?”:

Patience, patience

is a virtue

Waiting a while

With a smile

Trusting God will always bring

Everything we really need

Patience starts

with thankful hearts

I really like this little song, because it is such a wonderful reminder for Gabriel’s mommy too.

There are so many things in our lives that each of us is waiting on. Big things and small things. A lot of those things aren’t really needs, when it comes down to it. And when we wait on anything, the Lord asks us to do it cheerfully. How’s that for a loaded adverb? Cheerfulness has got to be part of the virtue of patience. I certainly don’t want to teach my kids that patience simply means “not whining” anymore and sitting there all sulky and grumpy until I serve them their dinner!

Just like I try to redirect my kids when they are impatient, making a conscious effort to redirect our impatience and anxiety to practice thankfulness interiorly is so fruitful for our souls.

I have a dear friend who started keeping a “Thankfulness List” on the side of her refrigerator. She had things on there like, “John-Matthew bringing me flowers from the garden,” to “Pio waking up dry this morning,” to “Matt being such a devoted husband to me.” I won’t list out all of the really, really big things this friend had to wait on in her own life, but suffice to say, she is a calm and holy woman who has been through a lot, and whose practice of being thankful for the small things in life is a beautiful and essential part of her spirituality.

To quote a song from Veggie Tales’ “Madame Blueberry,” “a happy heart is a thankful heart.”

I still have Anne Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts on my book list. You know, the book list that is filed in the back of your mind immediately behind “MUST GET INCOME TAXES OUT!” and “START WORKING ON MOTHER’S DAY GIFTS!” and “FIND THAT COUPON TO PAIR WITH THE 5-FOR-5 DEAL ON OATMEAL AT KROGER THIS WEEK.”

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