“O wait, impatient heart!
As winter waits, her song-birds fled
And every nestling blossom dead.
Beyond the purple seas they sing!
Beneath soft snows they sleep!
They only sleep. Sweet patience keep,
And wait, as winter waits the spring.”
Patience and passion are near of kin. A fragment of etymology will shed light on the meaning of the words. Says Crabb, in his English synonyms:
“Patience comes from the active participle to suffer; while passion comes from the passive participle of the same verb; and hence the difference between the two names. Patience signifies suffering from an active principle, a determination to suffer; while passion signifies what is suffered from want of power to prevent the suffering. Patience, therefore, is always taken in a good sense, and passion always in a bad sense.”
Patience, therefore, is the spirit of endurance, without complaint or bitterness, of whatever things in our life are hard to endure. It is a lesson that is hard to learn, but which is well worth learning at whatever cost. So important is it that our Lord himself said of it; “In your patience ye shall win your souls.” That is, life is a battle in which we fight for our ‘soul. The battle can be won only by patience. To fail in this grace is to lose all. This suggests how necessary it is that we learn the lesson, however hard it may be. Not to learn it is the battle of life, and that is the losing of the soul.
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