A Glimpse of Infinite Patience

Every day I go to work and take care of an 11-year-old boy who has Tourette Syndrome. So he has little tics and spasms and whatnot, and sometimes he flies into a rage and cusses me out at the top of his lungs for an hour at a time; but I've learned to deal with that. After all, he has a disorder. When it gets to that point he has no more control over his behavior than I do.

But there is one aspect of his behavior that gets to me. You see, since his Tourette Syndrome manifests itself in the form of a rage disorder, any time that he gets angry the risk exists for his rage to kick in and send him over the deep end. So his parents, instead of teaching him to control his anger in the face of adverse situations, went the other route and tried to remove all adverse situations from his life. Now, if you've ever lived here on planet Earth, you realize that this is impossible, but they went ahead and tried anyway, and thoroughly spoiled the kid.

So now, when he comes home from school, he expects me to bend and cater to his every whim, he wants me to anticipate his wants and needs and provide for them in the appropriate way; the term 'appropriate way' meaning whatever way he has personally deemed acceptable that particular day, which I am supposed to be able to ascertain from the way that he yells 'Shut up!' when I ask him how his day was. Moreover, he will not be imposed upon. He will not be imposed upon to throw his fruit-roll-up wrapper in the trash (though he will throw it any number of other places); he will not be imposed upon to wipe up the milk that he spilled on the counter; he will not be imposed upon to even consider feeding one of the myriad small, caged animals that his parents have purchased for him; he will not be imposed upon to go rollerblading when he has, for the day, decided that rollerblading is no longer cool; he will not be imposed upon to do his homework; and he will certainly not be imposed upon to listen to the likes of me. He is, undisputedly, the most spoiled, self-centered creature that I have ever come into contact with, and sometimes I can't take it. I assert my will, my fleeting authority, and he shrugs it off and flagrantly disobeys, and when this happens so many times in a day I have to stop. I have to retreat into myself, pull back from all interaction from him, lick my wounds, and try, oh the wonder that I haven't yet failed, not to burst through my skin and scream at him and march him to whatever task he's neglecting that any self-aware human being should do instinctively and show him just how little power he actually has.

Today I wonder, how many times has God wanted to do that with us? Where I am overwhelmed trying to deal with one such rebellious creature, God has billions on his hands. And He's not just our caretaker, as I am to this child, but He is our creator. When we disobey Him, we are not thwarting the authority of some arbitrary figure placed over us, we are rejecting the one that knows precisely how we should be acting and what we should be doing. After all, He created us to do it.

What patience God must have. What remarkable patience to create a being to act a certain way, to generously give him every faculty and circumstance to do just that, and then to hear him say that he would rather watch TV. What amazing patience to watch him 24 hours a day as a he goes about his life in willing and unflinching disobedience. What patience not to rend the skies in two and hurl down fiery moons upon the earth at those little, prideful creatures, going about their lives with no respect for the authority to which they owe their existence.

Praise God for his patience. Praise Him, that despite our frustrating disobedience and enraging pride, He has not given up on us, He does not read silently in the corner and let us go about our lives, but He continues to struggle for us, to the point of sacrificing His perfect Son so that we could share eternal life with Him.