By Lois Hewitt

I have lost my patience for impatient people. My drive home from work today was like a heat in a demolition derby. Horns honking, people flashing their lights, middle fingers flying and yelling out the car windows. The level of impatience is unprecedented. Anger rides on its coattails.

I get that life is very precarious right now. Stress is probably at an all time high. I used to be one of those people, hands death gripped to the steering wheel, f bombs flowing at a fairly consistent rate, heart racing, chest tight. I was an impatient, angry person for years. I lived on the edge of a heart attack most of my adult life.

Then I hit a figurative brick wall. I simply could not go on like that anymore. The realization hit me that all that blustering did not give me one positive thing in my life. The impatience did not solve money or health issues. It did not help with the overbooking of my schedule. It didn’t cook one single dinner or do one load of laundry. All that anger and angst gave me was unhappiness. I was miserable and today I see it in other people’s faces.

They somehow think they can control something if the car in front of them would just move. The car in front of them will be replaced with another car and another after that. The person in front of you at the grocery store is not responsible for your agony. But the more we take it out on others, the further we slide down the slippery slope to indifference. We will all eventually just stop caring. You get yelled at enough and you start to shut down. Where will empathy and kindness go if everyone stops caring? I cannot even imagine such a life, but unfortunately I think that could be our future.

Unless something gives and I do not have the answer to what that something is. So until then I will try to remove any indifference in my life and keep trying to be kind. I have to fight feeling like I just don’t care anymore. I can feel the well filling with anger but that’s not how I want to live. That’s not who I am anymore. So there is a daily fight to keep from being mowed over by the anger and indifference.

If you are struggling today, ask God for patience in an impatient world. Ask for caring in an uncaring world. If we all stay strong and carry His torch, we may see a difference in this world. And if we don’t, it will matter in eternity. Please do not let this world rob you of your peace, your love and your joy. These are gifts from God and His Son died for you to have them. Stay strong, my friend.