Love is Patient ...

Like a young mother-to-be waits for her baby's arrival date ... love is patient.

Like a young mother waits for the day her baby calls her by that most precious of names "Mommy" ... love is patient.

Like a young mother runs behind her toddler until she thinks she will drop and wonders if nap time will ever get here or if the house will ever be righted again ... love is patient.

Like a young mother sits, hour after hour as her child learns the pain-staking efforts of reading and writing and adding the sums ... love is patient.

Like a mother sits, hour after hour, watching her child at soccer ... at ballet ... in theater group ... at choir ... at youth group ... at music lessons ... and so on and so on ... love is patient.

Like a mother sits, hour after hour, over her child's sick bed, watching, praying, believing ... love is patient.

Like a mother waits, minute by minute, as curfew comes and curfew goes ... and prayers rise up, "Oh, Lord, keep him safe ... keep your eye on her" ... love is patient.

Like a mother prays ... week by week ... month by month ... year by year ... for God to become as much a reality in her child's life as the friends they swear they cannot go a day without ... love is patient.
Like a mother who grieves the time--the seemingly endless time--her prodigal is away, believing, believing they will return to her heart ... to her home ... love is patient.

Like a mother listens ... word by word, sentence by sentence, descriptive word by descriptive word ... as her adult child tells her of the "man of her dreams" or "the girl he is going to marry" and she knows that nothing in their relationship will ever be the same again ... love is patient.

Like a grandmother-to-be waits for her baby's baby's arrival and she knows of all that's necessary for what will follow ... love is patient.

by Eva Marie Everson

c. 2013