On Patience and Bookshelves

I used to think patience was simply waiting for things to pass so you can be happy, once they are over.

So patiently I would wait for the passing of time and the inevitable healing of my heart or the resolve of the trials I face daily; and the ones that pop up unexpectedly. It was as if my heartache and trials were books, titled and written, on my bookshelf. Untouched, the only power they had was over me as I waited for the time I could take a book down and retire it to the trash (where it belonged).....Waiting for the bookshelf to be empty, so I could be happy..... I'd wait patiently.

Just as love is kind, patience is active. It's a verb.

Patience requires action. Patience requires work and just the same, patience works on us. Patience allows me to take each book down in it's due time, hold it my hands, and know it. It allows me to learn. I survive in patience, even when I feel like life isn't being very fair to my little bookshelf.

So what do I do when all I want to do is topple the entire bookcase onto it side and burn all the books?

I cling to patience.

I act patiently. I don't complain about the bookcase. I don't hate the bookcase. I don't question why the book(s) came into my life. I don't rip the books apart. I don't try and rewrite them. I don't skip to the end. I don't let the book consume my life.

Instead I learn from my little bookcase full of books and patiently wait for the understanding that comes with slowing filtering through my many books. If I wait long enough, little happy books begin to appear, reminding me that all of life is not a heroic tragedy in which I try and fail. The happy books, they've always been there. Although, at times, I am not patient enough to sift through and find them, or even see them plainly before my eyes; they are there, all around me, shining so brightly.

Sometimes I'm much too familiar with my bookcase; I could name every book that lines it shelves. Other times, like lately, books appear that I never thought I'd see. Other times, they come flying at me so fast I can barely catch their meaning before they hit my straight on.

I may never understand some of the books on my bookshelf. I will never take some of the books on my bookshelf down. Why they are placed the way they are? I may never know. But patience is accepting that fact and realizing, although bizarre, they make my bookshelf complete and each book has meaning. Those books make my bookshelf mine. Those books make me, me.

Patience has her perfect work.

I used to think happiness comes after the hard part is over, when my bookcase is cleared, uncluttered and full of only the books I choose; but lately I've come to realize that happiness comes from the most read books, the most studied, the ones that are hard to read and understand, the ones that are coming apart at the seams (literally and figuratively), the ones that make us feel a little crazy, the ones that cause our hearts to hurt, the ones that make us weep, the ones that make us happy, the ones that we share with others; the one's that change our lives--page by page, chapter by chapter.

But we're not really taking about bookshelves, are we?

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire" Orson F Whitney