Patience...

Aah patience...it's something I have sometimes while at other times I don't have it. Sometimes I wonder how it works. How is it that I can spend so much time during breaks to catch legendary Pokemon only to soft reset and try again when I do not get the right nature and individual values? Actually, I don't have the patience. I end up multitasking with facebook or watching TV while I play Pokemon. I also eventually give up and settle with mediocre individual values because I'm sure it would take forever before I can get amazing ones.

What does that have to do with anything? Well, for one I definitely need more patience in other aspects. I show up to things early because I am impatient and do not want to be late. I need patience when I do my homework or reading because I tend to skim when I read or procrastinate when I study or write papers. I do not analyze more thoroughly when I decide to read a chapter from the Bible to understand what the text says. I do not have patience when I'm told to help my younger brother with his homework while I'm at home. I tend to check the time a lot. I finish my food quickly. By now I probably gave more than enough examples...

I definitely need more patience when it comes to talking with my mom. It's something I realized while I have been at home. I find it difficult to listen to my mom speak when I feel like she's too controlling. I realize her way of showing love is to tell me what to do because she feels that she knows what is best for me, but all it does is make me feel stressed or uncomfortable about my own image. She has all these hopes of me going to Berkeley for grad school right after I finish undergrad at UCSB, so she expects me to spend my summer doing an internship or go to summer school while I would prefer to go on summer project or be a part of a prayer ministry. She used to tell me I'm fat and need to lose weight. Now that I have lost some weight, she tells me that the way I dress is ugly and it looks like I'm going to a funeral everyday. Then she would tell me that she only says this because she wants me to be able to find a girlfriend and that I will never get married if I wear black t-shirts or weigh as much as I do. Anything she finds about me as a "flaw", she will immediately blame it on the fact that I go to church.

1 Corinthians 13 says love is patient. If I try to speak my thoughts calmly, she gets mad and I feel impatient. Does that mean I do not love my mom? I hope not. Maybe taking in all the hits then ranting about it later to others is not the best way in being patient. The only way I feel like I can please my mom is by trying to obey her as much as I can. It may be why I made an effort to lose weight in the first place by eating less when I was at school. I guess one of the ways I deal with all the stress my mom puts on me is having more patience in playing video games. It maybe why I'm online all the time when I'm at home.

This impatience may have also been put into my time with God. Sometimes I do have patience and can spend a couple hours in the prayer room. However, sometimes I still spend a little bit of time in prayer and then leave. My thoughts may wander elsewhere. I feel like I may be in a dry season where I don't feel like I'm spending enough time with God. I have to constantly remind myself that He loves me unconditionally and that I don't have to make an effort to please Him. It's funny how I feel like I don't have enough patience sometimes.

Dear reader, I would like you to pray for me, that I may have more patience at this time. I need it to live with all the criticism I get from my mom. I also need it to continue seeking to make my relationship with God deeper. That is all for now.

Kenneth