Instead of writing more about patience in this five-Sunday month, I want to pause and breathe.

I want to stop and dwell for a little while on the greatest virtue of all.

I want to exhale hatred and fear and angst and rage and grief.

And I want to inhale healing and hope and peace and trust.

I want to love.

I have read that George Floyd was my brother. I know he was already my brother in a general human sense. But I have read that he was a Christ-follower like me.

So that makes him my brother twice over. And while he was a stranger to me in this life, I will be honored to embrace him in Heaven one day.

And even though he was a stranger to me, a man I “wouldn’t know from Adam” on the street while he was living, I would never wish suffering upon another–let alone suffering a death like he did.

God, have mercy.

My heart grieves over every act of mercilessness. Every act of harming. Every act of dehumanization. Every act of cruel destruction.

And when any such act seems to be fueled by discrimination, it does more than “add insult to injury.” It slathers a despicable coating over a heep of seething evil.

Where is love? That greatest virtue…?

True love is in God’s heart that still beats with the desire for our redemption and our best. And it is in our hearts when we are attune to Him.

I realize in this moment that I don’t really want to be colorblind. Because if I were, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate and revel in glorious diversity and the gifts that all of us bring to the banquet of humanity.

I don’t want to be colorblind. Instead, I want to have x-ray vision of the Spirit that looks at other people and automatically sees the soul. I want to want the best for the stranger beside me, no matter what. And if they should become less of a stranger to me, I want to want their best even more.

Yes, let this be the heart of such love in me. And let that heart, that vision, do some small part today to melt the despicable coating and drive back the seething evil.

May I…may we…be conduits for the love and peace that leads to unity.

How God must smile when He sees us unified. And how He must weep when He sees us divided and hurting one another. My heart aches for His heartache.

I want to close these thoughts with a very short, untitled poem in Mr. Floyd’s honor:

When we watched your struggle —

Your murder, your dying —

We saw your skin tone,

Screamed at compounded injustice.

But God saw your soul

And wept at your choking

And ran to embrace you,

To welcome you home.

Rest now, earlier than you planned to,

Peacefully, in the arms of the One

Who has always loved you.

While here we remain and struggle…

To look past each other’s shells…

To love.

Every solid long-term or marriage relationship requires a great deal more than attraction and charm to remain vibrant and to grow even more meaningful. One of the most important ingredients in that recipe is a steady and liberal dose of patience. That is true as the years go by, but also in the early stages, when the relationship first forms and then stands or fails during its initial tests.

I have known about this in theory, of course, after studying marriage and family counseling two decades ago and now taking further counseling classes again. And I have had the privilege of observing couples who demonstrated such patience to one another.

But I have always felt a particular appreciation for a good man who will exhibit patience towards a woman he cares for. Such behavior is one of the most endearing human displays of Christlikeness that I can think of.

And, dare I say that I have often despaired when I looked around me and considered what a lack of such men I have seen out in the world. These days, it seems that a man either has to apologize for being a man, or that he has to be assertive, aggressive, or forceful to prove that true “men” really do still exist.

While I have worked and served and prayed, I have observed and waited. I have indeed known and thought these things in theory. But I despaired at some moments. Would my own patience and hoping pay off, in the realm of relationships? Would it be possible that such a good man could still exist, and that he would be interested in me romantically?

Enter one man named Paul, stage right. A man who has turned out to show me incredible patience, from nearly the first day I met him.

Yesterday, while we spent time enjoying each other’s company and swapping stories on a bench underneath a cobalt, cloudless sky, listening to rushing water and birdsong, I rested against his shoulder and prayed something like the following in a whisper: “Dear God, I wish every woman in the world could be loved like this. This is the kind of beautiful human love that is such a gift for a woman’s heart. Thank You.”

Before we met up for some quality time yesterday, I had recently sent Paul a link to a classic Billy Joel song (since Paul and I like to share fun and meaningful songs daily with each other). I told him that I have always loved the melody of the song, but now that I was listening to it again at a different stage in my life, there were some traits of the woman as described in the lyrics that I really did NOT want to possess or show–especially towards him.

Later, the idea took root in my mind. What if I could use the tune and rewrite the words to reflect my appreciation for Paul and his patience and gentleness and goodness shown to me? In a fit of inspiration, I did so.

And yesterday, near the end of our time spent together, I sang him the result.

I smile at the irony, how I started this month with a profile sketch of a man named Paul who wrote about love being patient. And I am ending the month with a profile of a man named Paul, as sketched in song lyrics, who has showed a very patient and growing love to me already. Below, I would like to share my new words with you, as well as recordings of both the original song and the melody alone.

As I share this piece of my heart along with a reflection of the man who has captured it, I hope the words will bless you.

Round the bend in my path, I looked up and I saw you

Felt a tug in my soul, a sweet longing to know you

All the hints of true goodness, they turned out to be

May I never forget what a blessing your trust is to me

Through the ups and the downs, you spoke truth I needed

Brought the tears to my eyes, held my heart in its bleeding

Then you prayed with conviction to set my pain free

May I never forget what a blessing your words are to me

Oh, you have shown such a light

You have laid down your pride

You have beckoned me near

Oh, you have stepped through each door

You have given me more

You have shattered my fears

You rejoice in my hopes and delight in my laughter

You wait out my storming and draw me close after

Through it all, we grow deep, like the roots of a tree

May I never forget what a blessing your heart to me

Oh, you have shown such a light

You have laid down your pride

You have beckoned me near

Oh, you have stepped through each door

You have given me more

You have shattered my fears

Take my hand, we’ll walk on until we reached the next bend

Turn the way that He leads and cherish every season

May His grace be our heartbeat, His presence our peace

With God as my help, may I never forget what a blessing your love is to me

As with some other virtues, trying to define patience can be a challenging thing. The definition of it, and the many angles from which it can be viewed or understood… The way it may be easier to define patience by noticing a lack of it rather then reveling in it and appreciating it at the moments when it surrounds and embraces us…

So often, I think of patience in a more positive to negative sense. That is, when I am expecting someone to become angry or frustrated with me, and they don’t show that anger or frustration, and they wait for me to say what I need to say or do what I need to do, that has so often been to me a sign of patience. And I think I have so often thought of my own patience as being reflected in those types of behaviors toward other people too.

But there is another side to patience, that I think has to do a lot more with endurance and perseverance and hope, especially in the long dark nights of life. Patience in that case is synonymous with persistence and resilience. It does not give up but literally suffers long.

Certainly, God is patient in that sense, but the difference with God is that in His all-knowing way, He sees the ending and what will come at the breaking point of the long dark night. We, however, in our limited finite sense and bindings of time, cannot see into the future. We do not know when the end of the battle and the long dark night will come. We can only hold on, wait, pray, and use every ounce of our faith to not give up in the long stretches and the struggles and the pain we may encounter along life’s way.

A great example of this that comes to mind from history today is the example shown by the early citizens of the United States. They fought for years, even decades, for their complete freedom, independence, and ability to really establish themselves in the land they dreamed of calling home on their own terms.

A survey of all they went through in hindsight shows us the points where they were closer to victory and other points where they were so near to defeat. But of course, in their time, they could not know exactly what was happening and what would happen next. They fought, stood, responded, and carried on, helping each other and believing in faith that if they would keep fighting and keep looking upward, in the end they would it gain something sweet.

As one who has benefited my whole life so greatly from the sacrifices they made and the patience and persistence they exhibited, I am grateful. And I think this teaches us that when we show such patience and persistence, reaching out for the dreams and the hopes that we have, we may benefit in our lifetime, but it may be the generations that come after us that benefit even more. And both of those things, in God’s all-knowing plan, are great blessings. In honor of those early revolutionaries and the patience and perseverance that they exhibited, I would like to share a “sentence” poem that I wrote just now.

We did not know

When the end would arrive,

But it was our

Dream

Of what the end might

Look like

That carried us through,

That gave us courage

And hope —

That gave us the patience

To lay the foundation

For a forged

An enduring

Home.