Early in my teaching career and as a new Christian, I made it a habit to pray for patience – especially because I was experiencing some challenges teaching high school aged kids. Interestingly, some of the tougher kids just kept getting testier\u2026.until one day:<\/p>\n
My boyfriend (now my husband, Joe) gently stopped me as we were praying together when I asked for patience. He said, \u201cWhen you pray for patience it\u2019s like you\u2019re asking the Lord to give you more challenges and struggles, which would lead to needing <\/i>patience. Instead of praying for patience let\u2019s pray for God to give you wisdom and understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Immediately I began praying for one particular student who was quite the trouble maker. As I prayed to better understand her and for wisdom in handling her misbehavior, the Lord began (through His word and through prayer) to show me the godly responses I needed with her. After a relatively short time, I recall her (and me) softening and eventually we developed a sweet relationship because I understood her background, her personality, and some of the reasons why she was acting like she did.<\/p>\n
That observation and instruction from Joe changed part of my prayer life forever. Never have I prayed for \u2018patience\u2019 again, but for wisdom and understanding over these many years.<\/p>\n
It has been interesting to watch the Lord give insight in many situations \u2013 from people I just didn\u2019t care for, to helping people with their unending struggles, to dealing with challenges in my personal life, our marriage, to raising an adult child with special needs.<\/p>\n
A few years later, when I had children in early elementary school years, I ran into this former student who was now, along with me, a mother to a child in the same school. She reflected with me how tough she was back in high school and said, \u201cI don\u2019t know what happened, but I remember it was really rough for a while and then we really liked each other.\u201d I said, \u201cIt\u2019s because I prayed to understand you.\u201d She smiled, and as we talked a little further, I think we both understood and knew the source. Maybe that prayer focus I learned so many years ago changed her prayer life, too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Early in my teaching career and as a new Christian, I made it a habit to pray for patience – especially because I was experiencing some challenges teaching high school aged kids. Interestingly, some of the tougher kids just kept getting testier\u2026.until one day: My boyfriend (now my husband, Joe) gently stopped me as we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,97,98,132,137],"class_list":["post-901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-patience","tag-pray","tag-prayer","tag-understanding","tag-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}