“Girls! Boys! I need you to get QUIET!! Girls?! Boys?! Ok, I’m going to count to THREE, and then I need you to listen. Oooooone, twooooo, threeee. Ok, get QUIET…PLEASE!!” I felt my blood boil as my 4th-grade students deliberately disobeyed every command that came from my mouth. I was only in my second week of school. Already my classroom was a mess of students out of seats, pencils sharpening at odd times, and voices talking over one another. Peace and patience? Please go to some other classroom to seep your feet into some serenity. My classroom was a disaster zone.
My close teacher friend used to joke that she could hear me through our joining classroom door. Really? Well, if she could hear me, then why weren’t my 4th-graders listening to me?? I thought if I spoke very LOUDLY, then they would get quiet. Or, if I spoke very sternly, they would morph into obedient students, listening to the mesmerizing sound of my voice.
But that just wasn’t the case.
Observing my classroom in my last years of teaching, you would think I had always been so magically patient. My classroom being a peaceful beacon of children working together. They collaborated on rigorous, project-based, multi-disciplinary assignments, following the correct developmentally-appropriate scope and sequence (oh, teacher jargon). Near the end of my teaching career, I never raised my voice and only spoke in assertive, soft tones.
But at the beginning of my teaching career, I felt defeated and frustrated with my classroom management skills (as you can see from the completely real example above). I believed I didn’t have what it took to be a teacher. I was ready to throw in the towel and search for a different career…
I stayed in the 4th-grade classroom for 5 years. And it was during that time I joined my first small group. God really is in the details. Because it was in that group I met 2 other new teachers and one experienced teacher. Every week we would come together, praying for the same thing: peace and patience in our classrooms. When we reconvened the following week, we would continue asking for more peace and patience. Somehow, we couldn’t muster enough peace and patience to deal with our (4th graders, 2nd graders, high schoolers) on our own.
Each week was the same. Going back to our classrooms, raising our voices to the point of yelling at the boys and girls who didn’t seem to listen. Or we didn’t know how to talk to them. Each morning praying for more peace, for more patience. And instead of turning to God in my weakest moments of anxiousness and yelling, I would try not to care about the chaos going on around me. I thought “not caring” was what brought peace.
My principal moved me to a 5-grade classroom, and I grew to love those kids, that class especially, very deeply. I wanted to be the teacher to excite their minds into learning. And when I finally made the jump to middle school, the patience that God had been cultivating in me those first 6 years was really tested.
Middle schoolers are no joke.
These kids looked at me with hatred…because they didn’t recognize themselves and wanted someone to lash out at. And I loved them beyond the hurtful words they threw at me or the ways they tried to ruffle my feathers. I was tempted to lash out several times. But in those moments where patience met the road, God had to tend to the hard soil beneath the topsoil. He didn’t want me to be lacking in any area.
My journey to becoming a more peaceful and patient teacher wasn’t that I got a more stern voice or that my heart finally grew a patience valve that started beating. Wouldn’t that be nice? No, it was that I really started caring about my students as people. I listened to their stories. I wanted their success. They felt my heart for them. So they started to trust me. And now, with my own children, I want that even more.
Looking back, I thought I could earn my students’ submission by fear. But I can see now that they wanted to know if I cared about them or just cared about their quietness.
In my 10th and 11th year of teaching, the administration would say they felt a calm in my classroom that could only be peace from God. I had opened my heart wide enough to allow the Holy Spirit to work His way in my character and build a peaceful and patient empire. Not by my own strength had I mustered enough peace and patience. I had let God sow and reap and harvest in my heart, where I knew there was a better way. And by that point, I was so patient that nothing one of those middle schoolers could do could phase me.
Birthed in a 4th-grade classroom, raised in a 5th-grade classroom, and matured in a middle school classroom, my peace and patience has gone through an eleven year transformation. Over the years I have learned the importance of listening to God to cultivate peace and patience for people, but especially children. And now with my own children, God continues to grow in me peace and patience that will not be shaken.
What does God intend from the fruit of peace and patience with your children?
When we trust God, the peace that transcends understanding enters our entire being (Phillipians 4:7). When we know He is working for the good of those who love him, we can have patience knowing that His timing is perfect. We do not have to wonder or worry if He’s thinking about us or even cares about us. We can place our burdens on Him knowing that He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). God himself is peace, so in turn, he gives peace to us (2 Thessalonians 3:16). We have an arsenal of patience with our own children because our Heavenly Father gives that to us and cultivates that in us. So as we rely more on him for this virtue, we are filled up, only for more divine patience to be poured out for our children.
What or who is stealing these fruits?
Long days? Whiny kids? A dirty kitchen? You name it. It would seem that the enemy knows every way to knock the patience pendulum off its peaceful trajectory of pillar to post. The opposite of peace is worry. The opposite of patience is haste. When we are fearful that God will not provide, we grip onto our own plans, becoming anxious. We try to hurry through what we think will give us what we need or dig our heels in when we think time is moving too fast. When we see a timeline of events that don’t seem to be going our way, we worry that we haven’t made ourselves clear to God in what we want.
How do we cultivate rich peace and patience in the dry seasons of motherhood?
Patience and peace show your children you care about them. The fruit of peace and patience is that your children feel seen, known, and loved by you. Think about it. When someone is in a hurry, you don’t feel very loved at the moment. You feel pushed to the side. Your kids are the same.
So many verses in the Bible speak about waiting patiently and courageously for the Lord, endurance in testing, lacking nothing, joy in trials. All patience-building attributes. But when we think about patience with our children and patience with my middle schoolers, I believe I was living out James 1:19. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” As I gained patience, I noticed I sat back and observed the intent of each of my students. I watched their faces to see if they were angry, bewildered, or trying to gain attention. When I stopped to listen to their body language and their words, I found I didn’t become nearly as angry. And especially when I let them speak first (making me slow to speak), I found that their words showed me the heart behind what they were doing.
And more times than not, my students just wanted to be seen and heard.
They wanted to know I cared about them, and this type of behavior is the same for my two-year-old and even my 5-month old. Before I jump to correct him, I observe his intent. Does he want attention? Is he learning how to do something? Is he frustrated that he is not able to figure something out? As I communicate with him and show him with my actions and body language that I want to help and care about what he’s trying to do, he trusts me. I want my son to know this patience that I have is the patience that God has given me.
To have patience in the Lord means waiting with a heart full of peace. When we are patient with God’s timing, our hearts can rest in peace. And our peace and patience will overflow from abundant hearts because we are trusting God and relying on him to give us what we need, moment by moment.
