LUKY:
WE WERE STANDING IN A QUEUE, THIS WOMAN AND I, WAITING FOR A SHOP TO OPEN.
We struck up a little conversation, bored as we were, when she began to get fidgety.
Then she said, at intervals: "You know, I haven't got a servant; I haven't got all day to stand in this queue. Why don't they open the shop?"
"I live ten kilometres out of town. I came all this way and now it seems I've got to stand here all day. When are they going to open up?"
"Well now, I don't want to be funny but I do feel it's high time they opened up."
Not any more
To all these, I grunted noncommittally. I had my own reasons for wanting that shop to open soon, but watching that young woman I realised that I have come a long way in life.
Fifteen years ago that fretting biter of fingernails was me. Today I stand quietly, thinking my thoughts and philosophically bide my time until someone, if anyone, opens the shop.
Somebody did, in the end, but by then I had to go to my job, so I left my fuming friend to take my place and made other arrangements for my purchases.
Sudden understanding
You always think life has taught you nothing, until a situation like this occurs. Then suddenly you realise that experience and the passing years bring a sense of tolerance and longsuffering you never wanted to possess when you were younger.
That, at least, is how it can be.
Sometimes I receive a kind letter from a reader, and it always does me good. Once an old gentleman wrote to me and asked me most flatteringly: "How is it that you are so wise, Luky, at your relatively young age?"
I never let praise go to my head, because if bouquets be here, can brickbats be far behind; but I felt that if I really had picked up any wisdom, there must be a reason for it.
Any wisdom I may have achieved I ascribe to my confinements.
Tough at first
The first time I had a baby I thought the pain was unbearable. At one point I thought there was a scarlet fog of pain between my husband and the midwife, and me.
When I thought I couldn't stand any more, I yelled: "Say the rosary! Our Father Who art in Heaven . . ."
Suddenly the fog lifted, just in time for me to see my husband and the nurse, both wearing looks which combined compassion and amusement. Ten minutes later the baby was there, and I was laughing too.
Lone job
I banished my husband from subsequent confinements. "Go and look after our children", I said.
He kept popping in hopefully, and I kept feeling I'd let him down because the baby was not there yet.
"Go and look after our children", I would say yet again. "Tell them to say a prayer for their old ma."
I concentrated on going along with every pain, trying not to oppose it, and sure enough, I kept a clear head and a controlled expression. I didn't yell, I didn't get cross, I didn't cry, I didn't even pray. God knew what was happening to me and to all the millions of other mothers-to-be at that moment and He wouldn't leave us in the lurch.
There's a time to pray and a time to work. During my confinements I worked.
In time I have adopted this attitude in all my pursuits. When there is illness in the home especially, I find it helps not to barrage Our Lord with pleas.
People everywhere suffer, so why should my family and I be spared pain?
When my husband once seemed to be dying in the earlier years of our marriage, I couldn't bring myself to pray for his recovery. I knew so many widows, why should I be special?
I saw no need to keep reminding Our Lord about my responsibilities. Every hair on my head is counted, He knew me in my mother's womb and He doesn't make mistakes.
I just try to weather the storm, to bend like a branch with each gust of wind, but I don't ask for special favors.
Lots of widows
"You have such strong faith, Luky", a friend said one day when my husband was at his worst. "I'm sure you've always tried to live as a Christian. He will spare your husband."
Her husband was standing with her, looking awfully morose, as though to underscore her words.
"You should only meet the number of Christian widows I know", I said to her.
Her husband tried to keep a straight face, but after a while he laughed. A few weeks later both of them and both of us laughed together at the memory.
I don't want God to know me as a fair-weather friend. I'm a fan of Job's in the Old Testament: "The Lord gives, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the Name of the Lord."
Little rubs discounted
Coming back to the closed shop; compared to some of the hurdles I have been forced to take during my life, standing outside a shop for an hour for nothing will never feature.
Rather than allow myself to get upset at small difficulties, I try to conserve my energies for death which, when it arrives, and if it be not sudden, will call for the utmost concentration.
It will be the final race, requiring all the wisdom, patience, tolerance and long-suffering we have gathered during the trials of our lives.
It's not too early to start, training for that last race now, because no matter how difficult it will prove to be, great is the glory that awaits us at the end.
Catherine Nicolette
Well now, as my dad used to say. The besetting issue that plagued me during my early years was impatience. As a young child and teenager I struggled with impatience; I could wait for nothing.
Everything had to be perfect. Everything had to be done now. And if it wasn't [as so often in life happens], I would be in a veritable fume of anxiety.
On my seventeenth birthday I remember kneeling down before my bed as I got up in the morning; I prayed to God for a miracle.
I wanted to be a saint in the shortest possible time, so I had quite reasonably worked out that if He granted me the gift of patience, it would quite nicely speed up my journey on my life's spiritual road.
"Dear Lord," I prayed, "Please make a miracle and grant me the gift of patience."
Prayer granted
It is a remarkable thing, but I don't feel I am the only one to experience rising from prayer with an inner conviction that God has granted our prayer.
I went about my days thereafter secure in the acquisition of the wondrous virtue of patience; which would arrive in short order.
It didn't. What did arrive, however, was a daily barrage of the most testing situations that drove my then meticulous soul to distraction.
I learned to put up with the difficulties, control my speech, and as the luminous Rumer Godden wrote in 'Kingfishers Catch Fire' [if I recall correctly from my teenage years] - I learned to 'thole'.
Thole is a simply lovely word; it means to endure something without complaint or resistance; to tolerate.
Many times when faced with an apparently insurmountable difficulty or suffering, I find myself murmuring,
'Just thole it'.
Déjà vu
Some time last year I found myself waiting outside a shop to open. A young lassie nearby in a tartan skirt was grumbling to all who passed, "When are they going to open this shop?" I found myself standing patiently waiting for the personnel to open it.
In the meantime, I was being endlessly amused at the smiles and gurgles of a baby in a pram, in chatting to his proud mom. Their little dachshund was prancing around the buggy; still a little pup, his energy and antics were cute.
Suddenly a sense of déjà vu hit me. I remembered reading Mom's words on learning patience along the road of life. And here I was, in a sense living the same experience years later in another country.
In that moment I realised that God had answered my youthful prayer by allowing me to face opportunities demanding exercise and practice of patience, as opposed to granting me instant patience.
And here I was, happily patient many years down the line. . .
Prayer for healing
Which brings me to my last point. Mom had told me she was not going to pray for Dad to be spared, because why should we be special?
I was not deeply thrilled at this philosophy, because my 11 year old take on this was that if Dad went to God, well that was God's Will.
HOWEVER: if Dad went to God, and it turned out he could have stayed a longer time one earth with us because we prayed to God and He decided to grant our prayer, wouldn't I be the one left with egg on my face?
So I prayed to God with all the fervour of my young soul that if it was His Will, would He let Dad be healed of his illness.
It turned out that God allowed Dad more time with us; I am sure that neither my mother's patient faith nor my heartfelt prayer went amiss.
Ageing process
As I move forward in the ageing process, I am amused to experience pressure to look more youthful than my age.
"Why don't you use Botox?" [a] because I don't want to - I'll bet it HURTS [b] because it's expensive and [c] I don't fancy the idea of injections near the main nerves of my face merely to feel better about myself. I already feel great, actually.
"Why don't you have a facelift?" My answer was, "Why? Do you think I look bad?" The person blushed and said, "Well, no. But wouldn't you like to look younger?"
To be truthful, no. I like having a look of gravitas about me. With some silver strands in my hair, a more matronly figure and a stately air about my walk [I'm rushing nowhere anymore], people tend to make way for me and listen to my words as if I know what I'm talking about.
My advancing years mean that I know a bit more about life, having lived so much of it. It also means that I know enough to know that in the final analysis, I know nothing.
Before the greatness and majestic infinity and wisdom of the Life of God, I am but a small spark.
Enjoy life
So, all things considered, let us enjoy life with the fruits of patience which enable us to live to the full our present moment, not always hurriedly looking towards the next hour for our contentment.
Let us enjoy our advancing years, secure in the knowledge that every day brings us one day nearer to that crossing from earth to heaven which will bring us, gloriously, face to Face with our Great God.
Finally, let us not be concerned at every tiny wrinkle we see on our face. I recently read the following beautiful story.
The luminous actor Sandra Bullock was speaking with her son; she apparently explained to him that her small eye creases were due to much laughter.
He replied to the effect that, 'That doesn't mean you're old. It means you're happy.'
The wisdom of children . . .
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