{Be Encouraged} Friendship Bracelets and Frustration

I have made my fair share of friendship bracelets over the years. In fact, I really like making them! There is something very calming to me about tying a million little knots in strings and having something pretty to show for it in the end. As some of you may know by now, I am a nanny and this week the 8 year old little girls asked me if I would teach her how to make friendship bracelets! Having many fond memories of of working on bracelets and wanting to share that experience with her, I agreed. Well….who knew how frustrating it can be to teach a girl how to tie knots! I will be the first to admit that I probably wasn’t the most patient teacher and my darling was soon just as frustrated with me as I was with her. We both decided that for the sake of our friendship we probably should continue making friendship bracelets! HA!

Last night I was thinking about the experience and wondering why it was so hard to teach her and for her to understand what I wanted her to do. I came to the realization that first of all I need to work on my patience and secondly I need to work on my expectations. I expected her to catch on quickly and be a competent bracelet maker in no time and I completely forgot the fact that it took me many failed attempts to finally make a decent bracelet. As I contemplated that I realized that I sometimes lack grace in other areas of my life as well and expect people to catch on quickly to ideas or to just already know things and I don’t take the time to explain where I am coming from or find out where they are at.

We are each given a lot of opportunities to share what we know or do and to teach others things that we have learned. This also means we are all given a lot of opportunities to learn grace and patience better as we serve in those situations. How have you been given an opportunity to teach and show grace this week? For me this lesson came in friendship bracelets, what will it be for you? I pray that the Lord will give you patience and grace as you serve and influence those around you. – Kristina