Monday, August 30, 2010

A Week of Virtues - Day 1 - Patience

 
Patience Definition:  The ability to endure delay, trouble, pain or hardship.

Like most good qualities and bad, I have all of them inside of me.  I get to choose which qualities to use.    Before beginning my recovery from alcoholism and depression, I didn't have a choice.  My diseases, which held me captive in self-centeredness, chose for me.  To practice patience over irritation is a choice for me today.  I struggle daily to choose patience.  However, my struggle is significantly decreased when I use the 12 Steps as my guide.  Through these 12 Steps, which I think anyone could apply to their life, I:
  • Learned that I am powerless over my diseases (Step 1)
  • Came to believe in a power greater than myself who could help me (Step 2)
  • Made a decision to turn my choices over to this power (Step 3)
  • Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, which is when I saw the gravity of being irritated and impatient (Step 4)
  • Admitted to myself, to God, and to another human being in what ways my impatience caused harm to others, including myself (Step 5)
  • Became willing to have God remove my tendency to become irritated with Him, myself, and others (Step 6)
  • Humbly asked God to remove this character defect from me (Step 7)
  • Made of list of people whom I had harmed because of my impatience and irritation (Step 8)
  • Made direct amends to those people except when to do so would injury them or others (Step 9)
  • Continue to take personal inventory and when I am irritated or impatient promptly admit it (Step 10)
  • Seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God praying for knowledge of his will for me, in this case to practice the virtue of patience, and ask him for the power to carry this out (Step 11)
  • Try to carry this message to others and practice the principle of patience in all my affairs (Step 12) 



I may be impatien(t) but I am still beautiful!


"Patience with others is Love, Patience with self is Hope, Patience with God is Faith."  ~ Adel Bestavros


6 comments:

  1. Un petit coucou de France!
    Très jolie photo!
    J'adore cette couleurs!
    Amicalement:CLAIRE

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  2. The quote at the end is wonderful. Patience is a trait that we all struggle with no matter what our background is. For me it has primarily been wanted problems in my life to get resolved emmediately....sometimes God's timing is not ours. That is a hard one to accept and learn. Thank you for sharing such an insprirational message! :-)

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  3. I guess our daily walks are an exercise in patience! I don't know if I am necessarily more patient now that I'm in AA but like you said "today I have choices". Now I stop, breath, and think rather than react. Nice post....

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  4. I have some patience- probably more
    than I used to- (" irritable, restless and discontent") love the end of the quote ! Thanks

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  5. LOVE "impatien--but beautiful!!!!!!

    When in a long line of waiting, my (bad) habit is to announce, "Peeps, it is a perfect opportunity for us to practice patience and tolerance."

    And yes, I DO get loads of ugly glances and stares--grin!

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  6. I am much more patient now than I was before being in Al-Anon. I think that compassion has helped a lot with increasing my patience.

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Thank you for sharing!