We're Late Again

Proverbs 25:15

With patience a ruler may be persuaded,
and a soft tongue will break a bone.

Colossians 3:12-13

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Galatians 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Ephesians 4:1-3

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

By nature I am a timely person. I like to be on time and am really embarrassed to show up anywhere late. Our changing family dynamics over the past several years have changed our ability to arrive anywhere in a timely manner. It sounds like I'm blaming the children in an attempt to excuse myself from preparing in advance or leaving enough time to get places, but it really isn't that at all. For example, we begin preparing for Sunday morning church services on Saturday afternoons with baths and setting out clothes for the younger kids who need help and direction with this. Everyone goes to bed early on Saturday nights, ridiculously early compared to age-alike peers. We wake early on Sunday morning and eat a healthy breakfast, always with some kind of protein to keep them filled up throughout the morning. We prepare every week to arrive at church on time, and yet we were late again yesterday. And it's okay. Actually, it's great, because we were late and everyone stayed calm, patient and even joyful. It just happens to be hard to find a place to sit for a family of eight when you arrive late to the early service on Sunday morning.

Every week I strategize about getting places on time. I wonder how we can improve or what we could do differently. I worry about the judgment of others, fearing that they think I am unorganized enough to get my family places on time. I wrestle with excuses and fight pride over looking like we don't have it all together. (ha!) Some days I think that it could be that our family is now 3/4 Colombian and we have a different view of time and timeliness than the traditional North American family. That reasoning is actually okay with me because I love the people of Colombia and their way of life, but I realize that it is just an excuse. Ah, if our tardiness were only that simple.

For us time management and timeliness is all about the process and not at all about the end result. For our family the process, a life lived in patient love toward one another, is the lesson that trumps any end result of arriving on time, or even arriving anywhere at all. Early in our parenting journey I could have managed to rush along the first few kids, hurrying them places, but they were still so little and rushing was impossible because I was doing most things for them at that age. When the first big kids came home and I tried to rush them (which I did shamefully often) all sorts of everything went seriously wrong. The end result was just not worth arriving on time anywhere and it rarely motivated the children to be quick as I had hoped, not to mention that the emotional clean-up for my impatience often lasted for days.

When I realized that my impatience in getting ready to go places was a stumbling block for our family, I decided that I needed to change my perspective and priority on timeliness. The most important thing for our kids to learn is not to arrive anywhere on time, but to be patient, enduring, kind and loving in difficult situations. We are getting better and better at arriving on time or arriving late without a massive fallout. This is progress. I am reminded that arriving late with patience and joy is better than arriving on time with an attitude that has hurt others.