Choosing Love, Grace, And Patience-Because Your Relationships Matter

Our Relationships are Important – A Practical Guide to Choosing Love, Grace, and Patience in Our Relationships

What did you choose today? Did you choose coffee or tea cereal or oatmeal, whole fruit or a smoothie? Did you choose joy or sadness. Are you choosing love or hate, fear or faith, anger or adoration? What did you choose today?

We make choices every day. Most of the choices we make seem harmless. However, there are many choices we make every day, some of which are mentioned above, that effect our lives and the lives of those around us whom we love and adore. The effects can either be positive or they can have harmful, even dire outcomes on our relationships.

Choosing love, grace, and patience in our response and actions is not easy to do. It will require we put away many old habits, and start practicing new ones daily. You will need to be intentional. Finally, it will require paying attention to the words we choose, our demeanor, and our attitude.

That is why I invite you to join this Live Heart-Fully Conversation about choosing love, grace, and patience with Tani Salsedo. We will discuss some real life, common examples of circumstances, and provide tangible ideas on how to choose love, grace, and patience through those circumstances. Comment below with any thoughts you may have. How do you make a daily practice of choosing love, grace, and patience?

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About the Live Heart-Fully Conversations

Welcome to the Live Heart-Fully Conversations! The Live Heart-Fully Conversations are a series of interviews and conversations created to inspire, provoke, and challenge you to go deeper in feeding your own soul and pursuing stronger, authentic relationships with others. Over the next year, I am talking with some amazing powerhouse people who have had some true challenges, lived through them, and are now sharing their own personal power stories.

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Check out these blogs

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Welcome Tani Salsedo

Tani is a stay and home mother, blogger, and soon to be homeschooling parent. She has been married to her husband for five years now, and together, they have their hands more than full with three children ages three, two, and five months. Tani is also a step-mother to a wonderful ten year old boy.

One of Tani’s big, bold, and beautiful dream is to eventually build a motherhood community – a place where she can provide help and assistance to children and mothers in crisis. She has a big heart for single mothers specifically, but does not want to limit herself to that. She desires to provide resources and counseling, and would love to build a not-for-profit or volunteer clinic to facilitate these resources.

The Conversation: Choosing Love, Grace, and Patience

In thinking about our lives, we are always making choices. Many are big choices. Even more are small choices. Our approach to the circumstances surrounding our lives, along with the choices we make as we navigate those circumstances do affect others as well as our relationships with others. This is especially true with those we love.

Can you provide some specific examples of some circumstances surrounding our lives and the choices we often make in those circumstances that affect our relationships with others?

When My Son Bit Me!

Sarah: In the Live Heart-Fully Journal section on Choosing Love Grace, Patience, I give a specific example of a time when I was tickling my son and we were laughing and giggling, and he bit me. He’s not really a biter. In fact, he’s never been a biter. But in this is one instance, he bit me. Of course I got really upset. I might have yelled at him a little and I kicked him out of my bedroom and closed the door. Then I just sat on the floor and I cried. I was confused andI was having an adult version of a pout, you know, a pouting session and…

Tani: Yeah.

Sarah: …and in the meantime while I was doing that, he was in the hallway apologizing, and crying and begging for me to come out and comfort him. He really needed to process what just happened and he needed me to help him with that. But I was ignoring him because I was dealing with my own pain. Initially my choice here was to ignore him. However, I decided to get up and I went out there [to the hallway where my son was] and I said some words to him. But they weren’t very nice words. I don’t remember exactly but it was something to the effect of, we were having such a good and fun morning and you had to go and bite me. You ruined our morning. It was very sarcastic. So my words to him were not very helpful. Then I went back into my room and I started pouting again!

However I soon realized (partly through prayer because I knew God was prompting me), Sarah, you need to be a mom! You can’t be a child. He’s the child. Stop pouting. Go out there and give him the comfort that he needs. I realized it wasn’t just that he wanted me to comfort him. He needed to talk with me talk about what happened. Also, he felt a strong need to say he was sorry to me. He’s genuinely such a sweet boy and he really was sorry.

So I realized I had a choice that I needed to make. I’m going to get over my own self and my own pain, and I’m going to go out there and give him what he needs. We’re going to sit down and we’re going to talk about it. When I did that, he explained to me why he bit me. Then he apologized and we sat and talked. Then we read a book together (which always comforts him). After that we were able to have a normal day.

Tani: Yeah.

Sarah: We have certain circumstances in our lives […]. The choices we make when those circumstances come up, affect others.

Choosing Love, Grace, Patience Because Our Relationships Matter

So again, can you provide some specific examples of some circumstances surrounding our lives and the choices we have to make in those circumstances that affect our relationships. Some examples of relationships to consider are:

• Your relationship with one or both of your biological parents,
• Step-parents.
• Step-children,
• A friend,
• A mentor or older wiser person
• Your spouse,
• Any or all of your children,
• A boss,
• A co-worker.

A Beautiful Mirror to Ourselves

Tani: I’m still learning that the way that we respond to our children is so important for so many different reasons!

You were saying he needed to process it and he needed help. We’re the adults. We’re supposed to be giving him [them- i.e. our children] the tools. At times our own frustrations, or sin, gets in the way and we have a hard time responding well.

I find that with my husband as well. I grew up around a lot of heated arguments and that has shaped the way I respond when I am angry or I don’t agree with something. My initial instinct is to just yell and to get really emotional.

When They Dumped the Flour and It’s Everywhere!

[For example], if someone dumps flour all over the kitchen, and I’m like, why would you do this! Well they weren’t really thinking about it. They weren’t [thinking] Mom will be so mad if I dump this flour all over the kitchen. Mom will have to sweep it up […]. They’re just thinking, oh, that looks interesting, or, oh I’m gonna pretend to bake like mommy. And that actually comes from a good place.

The way we respond has a lasting impact.

I found myself a little heartbroken because my daughter said something like, oh, you’re gonna love me if I clean this up. I was like No! No, I love you if you make a mess! I love you if you refuse to clean up! I love you always! And, but it’s really helpful if you do clean up.

Sarah: I love that you said that! It reminds me, and I’m not the best example of doing this well, but we don’t want to put fear into our kid’s minds and hearts. Like you said, a lot of times when they get into things like the flour, they’re just doing it out of a sweet and good place […]. They don’t really have any evil intentions in what they’re doing.

In our response, if we’re not choosing love, grace, patience, we could potentially be instilling fear. And then they’re going to become afraid to ever explore and do stuff because, they’re going to constantly be thinking, Mom and Dad are going to be upset if I do that. I don’t want to raise my son, and I’m pretty sure you would agree, we don’t want to raise our children to always be afraid to do stuff because they’re afraid they will get in trouble or they will disappoint [us].

Tani: Yeah, definitely!

[…] it is hard to say, You know what? There’s flour all over the kitchen. The reality is, we’re going to clean it up. It’s going to take probably five minutes [to] clean up and it’s going to be fine. But in the moment it seems like, oh my goodness, I was in the middle of something. I was trying to cook breakfast!

A Second Chance at Choosing Love, Grace, and Patience

What I really am personally working on is responding well after I respond poorly. I think that can relate to what you were sharing with your son.

When I respond poorly and when my knee jerk reaction is anger, or I get really upset. Maybe [there] was a real mess with someone going poop, I don’t know, lots of stuff happens over here! But pulling them to the side and showing them it’s okay. Sometimes we get angry and it’s not right? But it happens. This is what we need to do to mend it – going to my child and saying, I’m really sorry. I got really upset at you for messing with the flour, for example, and I shouldn’t have raised my voice. That was very unkind of me. I needed to have told you in a nicer way that we’re not going to be playing with flour right now, or whatever it may be.

Apologizing!

There’s this idea that we have to be this perfect parent or the perfect mom, that never speaks an unkind word, that never disciplines poorly or does anything that could harm [her] children. And that’s just not real life. We always make mistakes! We’re always learning.

I think that one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is to be able to learn to say sorry to them. It’s so hard to do! I struggle with it and I don’t think I’m the only one that does. Especially as my kids get older and they’re more logical. I find it even harder because – you knew you weren’t supposed to do this, but you did this. And so I’m mad at you. But that’s not the point. The point is I don’t get to be mean just because of something [my child] did! You wrong me a little. I don’t get to wrong you a lot because of that!

I find it really helpful to even calm down after being upset, and for them to calm down too […].

Sarah: Apologizing and saying that we’re sorry does not negate the behavior or the bad choice. When we say we’re sorry, it doesn’t excuse their behavior. We are saying we are sorry for our bad choice on how we responded. 

Tani: Yes! Exactly!

Sarah: I think as adults we understand that, but it’s definitely harder for kids to navigate. Mommy’s saying she’s sorry so that means I didn’t do anything wrong versus mommy’s saying she’s sorry for what she did wrong but I still did something wrong and so I need to say I’m sorry too.

How do we teach our kids that?

As they get older, they might understand that a little bit more. With my own son, a few days ago I had to apologize to him about something. I said something that was mean, and kind of like you, I tend to verbalize my anger a little bit more. I raise my voice, and I might say something mean. So I was apologizing to him and he thought that meant he didn’t do anything wrong which means he gets to continue doing the negative behavior.

So I had to have a conversation with him to say, well actually I’m apologizing for my negative behavior. My response to you was not right. But that doesn’t necessarily excuse your negative behavior.

Keeping the Twinkle in Their Eyes

While we’re on the topic of the flour example: we’ve talked about the negative consequences of when we don’t respond with love, grace, and patience. When we do respond with love, grace, and patience, what is a positive outcome? Can you give an example of a positive outcome of when, as a mom or a dad, the kid spilled the flour and the kitchen is a mess, and a parent responds with love, grace, and patience? 

Tani: When it comes to our children, when we respond with grace, love, and patience, it doesn’t take that light out of their eye, that twinkle out of their eye. They probably got into the flour cause they were curious and they thought it’d be fun. They probably threw it all over the kitchen because it’s exciting and something new.

I think it, [responding with love, grace, and patience] allows us to correct them with the lens of, I understand that’s fun. This is not the way to have fun with it. There’s a good way to use something. There’s a bad way to use something. I think [it’s] a lot easier for our kids to understand, especially as they get older, so I’m not supposed to play in the flour right now but later today we’re going to make cookies, and that’s going to be something exciting. I’m going to be allowed to do and it’s going to be helpful.

I think when we correct in that way they tend to have joy in helping to clean up the mess and to be quick to repent or apologize for making a mess. We can [also] more clearly see an opportunity to teach, there’s a consequence for everything. It doesn’t mean a bad one or a good one, but if you spill flour on the floor, you’re going to have to clean it. Now we’re going to clean it up and we’re not going to do that again. We’re going to use flour and we don’t want to waste it because this is what makes those delicious cookies that you love.

Sarah: We don’t want to instill fear. So I’ll just add that a positive outcome [of a response like what Tani gave above] is that they’re not going to be afraid. I don’t need my son walking around afraid that I think he’s going to make a mistake. Instead, I want him to be comfortable exploring. That’s part of his learning, especially at the toddler and preschool age. I don’t want him to be afraid to get his hands in things.

Messes are just part of parenthood.

I also want to add about the apologizing and the responding well after you responded poorly is modeling good behavior. There’s always going to be a positive outcome to that. There’s always going to be something they will learn from us [parents] by observing us as we are modeling that [apologizing].

Tani: Yeah definitely. We don’t want to be passively just saying it because we said some things we shouldn’t have said. We do want to teach them to genuinely take a step back to think, take a breather, maybe pray, […] collect ourselves and look at the situation. Then we can genuinely come to them and say, I’m sorry, from a genuine place. With all the things right when we respond well in love, and patience and grace, we are modeling a healthy way of apologizing to our children. We want our children to be genuine […]. And like you said earlier, it doesn’t mean we are saying, you were right and I was wrong. We could just be saying, I responded really poorly in this situation. And I should have responded better.

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

Still Choosing Love, Grace, and Patience with Our Spouse

You mentioned briefly about your husband and how you’ll yell and put out more heated responses.

Tani: Yeah [laughter].

Sarah: So let’s talk about spouses. Can you think of any specific examples of how this, (choosing love, grace, and patience) can relate to our relationship with our spouse?

Tani: With your kids it’s easier to step back and say, they genuinely don’t understand. It’s more of a, I’ll teach you. But when it comes to our spouse, we’re working together. We’re teaching each other. There’s more of a lateral relationship. I think it can be hard because if we feel hurt, we can’t say oh well, they’re just a kid.

I found that really when it comes to responding with love, grace, and patience in hard situations or frustrating times, it’s really about not thinking about yourself. And that’s the hard part – not thinking about how I feel, not thinking about what’s making me upset.

My husband [and I] just had a conversation the other day and it almost became an argument. We were so focused on the ways we used to respond, he thought I was going to respond a certain way when I was not feeling that way.

When we are not consciously looking to give the other person grace and looking to their perspective, or to understand why they might not understand where we’re coming from, then it’s a mess!

One of the biggest things for a healthy marriage is to be able to have grace on one another and to respond in love. And I am very bad at it. I’m very good at staying in my anger and debating my way.

I find that’s ineffective! I can be 90% right, but because I didn’t respond in grace, love, and patience, I’m wrong. It’s not received. I can be saying the right thing and having good points, but I’m responding in my anger and in my unwillingness and unrelenting frustration. It’s really hard for someone to receive that.

My anger doesn’t negate my husband’s hurt, or his concern.

Sarah: Yeah. So, wow, there’s a lot in there to unpack. We’ve already unpacked these next questions with regards to our children. However, staying on the topic of our spouse, let’s picture a scenario like the conversation you had the other day that almost became an argument, or maybe some other conversation you’ve had that did become an argument…

Choosing Love: Human Touch and Laughter

Choose a circumstance/example you mentioned above. What does choosing LOVE in that scenario mean to you?

Tani: I’ll share something that my husband does […]. I can get, sometimes stuck in my anger. I have all the words and I’m going to say all the different things that you did wrong and really lay it out. And then you’re going to apologize. I can get into those modes […]. Something my husband does that really breaks that tension is, he’ll come over and he’ll give me a hug. I usually fight it at first [laughter]. Or I laugh and I’m like, I’m mad at you right now, or, stop I don’t want you to touch me! He’ll [say] Give me a hug. It really does break the tension?

Sarah: It really does.

Tani: I think human touch really does do a lot for us. Especially in this past year with Covid. Human touch really makes a big difference on how we can love one another.

Sarah: I agree.

Tani: I don’t know if grounds us would be the right word, but it brings us back to that reality. When you’re first dating your spouse, you’re just so happy to be with one another, and that’s your reality […]. With kids and all these different things as you start creating habits and more issues come up, sometimes we lose that.

This is what matters: me and you, this relationship!

Sarah: Yeah.

Tani: So that’s one way my husband responds in love.

Sarah: My dad used to do that with my mom. Not only would he go and give her a hug, but he’s kind of a silly, quirky guy so he would make funny faces and start acting silly and quirky to make her laugh. I believe laughter is a healing medicine. I remember they would get in these arguments and he would come into the room and give her a hug and start making funny voices or funny faces to get her laughing. That would just break up all the tension. I’m sure they would still have conversations about it later, but in that moment, it would be back to being a family.

Choosing to Love Him for Your Children’s Sake

Also regarding choosing love, a lot of times we don’t feel love, even though we do love [our spouse]. When we’re in an argument or a heated moment with our spouse, we may not feel love. It can be hard to do something in love when we’re not feeling love in that moment.

My husband and I had a conversation at one point awhile ago. At the time we were feeling disconnected. There weren’t a lot of arguments but there was that feeling of being disconnected, and it was causing a quiet animosity and contempt. We were both feeling it towards each other. Finally we sat down one night. We sat on opposite sides of the couch, and I asked him, ‘Do you love me. I don’t feel like you love me anymore’. This opened up a conversation and allowed us to talk freely.

I’m telling you this because it occurred to both of us that when it comes to our son, we need to stop feeling contempt towards each other in front of him. We need to do everything we can (even if we don’t feel like it in that moment) to show him how we’re supposed to treat each other as husband and wife. So we came to the agreement that regardless of how we feel towards each other, when there is contempt, when we feel disconnected, and when we get on each other’s nerves, we still need to show and demonstrate love.

I don’t want him to grow up thinking that, this is the way my wife is supposed to treat me.

Tani: Yeah.

Sarah: I also don’t want him to grow up thinking that, this is the way I’m supposed to treat my wife.

Kids pick up on that stuff. They are learning how to treat those they love, and their future spouse based on how we treat each other.

The whole point I’m making is that if you’re not feeling love for your spouse because you’re in a moment of anger and frustration, go back to your love for your children and love your spouse well for their [your children’s] sake.

[For the record, concerning the previous mentioned conversation, my husband and I did express our love for one another. Also just to clear up any possible misunderstandings, in the above example, I am not suggesting anyone fake or pretend a loveless partnership. Rather, I am referring to specific moments in heated arguments where it can be difficult to respond in love because one party (or both) may not be feeling love in that moment].

Choosing Grace: A Gracious Word

Following along with the discussion of our spouses, what does it mean to you to choose GRACE?

Tani: I particularly struggle with my words – the way I use my words, the way I say my words. For me grace is being gracious with my words.

Growing up I was around very heated arguments, unkind words, I’m hurting, so I’m going to hurt you. That’s my knee-jerk reaction, I’m going to hurt you louder. Having grace in those moments is being able to hold my tongue and not say anything. Those things we say when we’re angry are not how we genuinely feel. Maybe there’s some truth there but not necessarily to that full extent, everything we say.

Sometimes I don’t want to be gracious to him, and that’s my own personal struggle. Sometimes I feel that he doesn’t deserve my grace, and that’s the opposite of what I need to be doing.

When I respond in grace, I’m biting my tongue. That doesn’t mean I’m dismissing it like we talked about with the [our] kids. [Instead], I’m actually going to stop where I am now because I’m not in a healthy head space right now. I’m feeling very angry and feeling very upset.

If I have issue with the way, my husband did something or the way that he responded to me, we need to talk about it, have a conversation about it, but not in a bitter way where I am resentful at my husband. I need to give him grace and sometimes that’s just saving it for a non-heated time.

The Battle of the Dishes

Or a gracious word! Sometimes there’s a gracious way to say it without stirring up strife first [or] causing anger. My husband told me the other night come play a game with me. Don’t wash those dishes. I’ll wash them in the morning. The next morning, it suddenly came up that he forgot about it. So you didn’t get to the dishes!

This didn’t necessarily happen, but I could be very angry at him and yell at him and say, you said you would do the dishes. Now I have to do the dishes and I have these kids to take care of and you’re running out the door! But if I were to choose grace in that situation and maybe I still wanted to share my disappointment I could say, I’m a little disappointed because You said you were going to do the dishes […]. When we come at it with gracious words our husbands (or whoever it is) will respond and say:

• yeah, I’m so sorry. I really forgot about this meeting I had to go to…
• I really forgot…
• I’m sorry. I totally spaced…
• you know what, I have five minutes. I’ll do them right now.

Sarah: This is a hard thing to do and I don’t always do this, but we do have nights where we just want to relax. My husband gets tired cause he has an ever-changing work schedule and doesn’t really ever have a regular routine. So for me, and this is a little bit different for me, (he does the dishes most of the time, it’s kind of an unspoken responsibility that he has taken on himself). But if he doesn’t get to it that night, he tells me he will do them in the morning, and again he doesn’t get to it in the morning for whatever reason, for me, responding with grace is that I am just going to do it. I’m going to do it and I’m not going to be bitter about it.

In my mind, We both live here and there’s no one responsibility that is his or mine. We’re both responsible for our house and part of living in a house is making sure it gets taken care of. And we’re not going to be like roommates (you do this job and I’ll do that). Instead, we’re going to be a team. So in general, he does the dishes. But if he doesn’t get to it, then I’m going to just do it. It’s just as much my responsibility as it is his. That is responding in grace for me, and not being bitter about it. I’m going to just do the dishes because I’m going to help him out cause I know he’s tired. I know, he’s busy.

Stop Pushing Those Buttons!

Also, if there’s an argument and he’s trying to make a particular point in his argument, I’m going to say, I understand. This might qualify as a gracious word. I understand your viewpoint. I totally get that. Now I might have a however (I try my best to stay away from the word, but). However, this is how I feel… (and you fill in the blanks).

Finally, I’m similar to you in that, as I said earlier, I can get mean and critical. I know exactly what to say to make him mad. I’ve been married to him awhile now and I know exactly where his buttons are. Many times I’ll push those buttons exactly where I want to push them.

However, if I’m choosing grace, I’m going to tell him that I understand and I am not going to push any buttons – not any of those buttons that are going to make him mad and escalate the situation.

That’s hard for me. That’s very hard! I just want to go and criticize him and [say] anything that would be disrespectful or degrading. I stay away from this response if I’m choosing grace. Now if I’m not choosing grace, then I’m going to disrespect and degrade him in every way possible.

Tani: Definitely.

Choosing Patience: Giving One Another Time

Finally, choose another example from the question above. What does it mean to choose PATIENCE?

Sarah: I’ll go first on this one. Choosing patience is [understanding that] this might not be resolved overnight. It’s probably not going to be resolved in just a conversation. I’ll go back to when we [my husband and I] were sitting on the couch and I asked him if he still loved me. It takes work! Relationships take work! It takes weeks, and months of being intentional, and sometimes even years, and choosing to continue pursuing the other person.

Patience is that I need to give him the time to create some better habits, and habits aren’t created overnight. I need to give him time to be able to create a habit around being intentional about certain things. It gets better.

Please Let the Sun Set! Putting a Pause on the Conversation

And for myself, the way I can respond, and I do this a lot…first let me say that a lot of people in the Christian Community say that you should never sleep on an argument, [a reference to a scripture that discourages people from allowing the sun to set our anger]. I disagree with that because if you’re up, and you’re tired, and it’s late at night, and you’re hungry and grumpy, and you just want to sleep, that’s when bad words can be exchanged.

Tani: Oh yeah! Yeah!

Sarah: You just want to go to bed! I’m a morning person too so maybe this is partly my own mindset, but my mind is so cluttered by the end of the day that I’m usually not on my best behavior.

[Laughter from both of us].

Tani: Us moms [more laughter]!

Sarah: Yeah! It’s so true! In the morning I come out and I’m all smiles. I’ve missed him [my son] during the night so I want to give him a big hug. I love having these sweet moments in the morning. But then at the end of the day I’m yelling, just go to bed already! Stop getting up! Keep your head on that pillow! I’m not on my best behavior at nighttime, but in the morning I can be the sweetest person ever.

So if I can just sleep on it (going back to heated discussions, fights, and such with my spouse), if I just get a good night sleep, in the morning I can wake and I’m more clear headed. I feel better, and I often realize that it’s not really that big of a deal.

So with being patient, it’s just allowing yourself to have time, and also giving the other person time.

Tani: Yeah. I like that. I really relate to that, and I don’t know if it’s the personality type, but I still struggle a little bit with being patient. In arguments [and] disagreements, I want resolve. We’re not supposed to let the sun set on our anger, but I’ve come to realize, like you, that when I do push it longer so we can resolve it, we just keep going in circles. That’s what usually happens in those long evenings. We’re just angry and very tired and irritated. [It’s okay to] allow time to pass before we get to a resolution. I resonate with that!

My husband is really good about [saying], no, let’s not do this, as I’m getting wound up. Any hour after 8-9 O’clock, let’s not argue about this.

What you’re sharing – I don’t think you’re letting the sun set on your anger. I think you’re allowing yourself to have patience. You’re putting a pause on that and you’re being able to separate that from your love. Your patience and your grace are surpassing that need to resolve this thing [right at that moment]. You know that your relationship is more important than this issue and because you guys are working in love, and grace, and patience, you are able to resolve it in the morning.

Changing Habits and Recognizing Growth

Patience for me – sometimes our spouses, and ourselves, can have habits that we tend to fall into that our spouse doesn’t enjoy. [For example], maybe I can be really good to my phone. Sometimes it’s blogging, but then it becomes more obsessive. Right now I’m on a big healthcare [curve]. I’ve been constantly on my phone reading different things about health.

I think when it comes to habits, it’s hard for me to be patient. It seems like why can’t we resolve this already. It keeps coming up! [But we aren’t] recognizing, wait, there has been change! Now we have different boundaries, and if those boundaries are getting, blurred a little we need to re-up [sic] them.

We need to have a conversation about what boundaries we’re both okay with. We as humans are habitual and we have natural tendencies. And with those natural tendencies if we disagree with our spouse’s habits,for example, if we don’t necessarily like how often I’m on Instagram, or how often I’m on blogs studying health, my husband can recognize, you’re getting better.

Rachel Jankovic, [has a book], Loving the Little Years. It’s a really good book. She talks about how sometimes with our children, we’re so focused on one thing they’ve been doing, and then another thing pops up. So they get over that one thing, and then they start doing something else. [We need to be] recognizing, hey, you’re not doing that one thing anymore.

Having patience sometimes is also recognizing the progress we’re making. When we’re living with another human that has other habits, they’re going to have things that you [and] they need to figure out too. Having patience in the grand scheme of things might look like having to talk about the same thing over and over again, and revisiting some things that we thought were solved. Oh, this thing changed and now it’s a little different, but we need to change the way that we were dealing with that.

Sarah: That’s really good. That goes along with my initial mention about giving each other time to create new habits. Yes, revisiting old habits that maybe are still there but they look different now. I think relationships with children, spouses, friends, relatives are always changing and evolving. And so we need to give ourselves the grace and the patience to be able to navigate through those changes and realize that things just don’t happen overnight. 

Choosing Love, Grace, and Patience for Ourselves

I want to give you an opportunity to share your own journey related to this topic. Why did you choose this particular topic? Is there anything else you would like to share regarding choosing love, grace, and patience.

Tani: I was drawn to this topic because it’s something I personally am constantly working on. I think being a stay-at-home mother, it’s a lot of working on my attitude. It [being a SAHM] can be mundane and it can be routines happening over and over again. Sometimes that is really restful, but sometimes it’s exhausting!

[I’m] constantly needing to have love, grace, and patience. And part of doing that with my kids and my spouse is doing that with myself. As a homemaker and mother and wife, it can be hard because you are focusing so much on everyone else and how, I need to do this for my husband, I need to do this for my kids, I need to do this for the house, and this for everybody, and so sometimes we can get lost in, that identity.

But I have mixed feelings about self-care because I think they’re healthy ways to do it and they’re unhealthy ways to do it. Finding ways to have grace, love, and patience for yourself – that’s self-care! Having time to go shopping by yourself might be really nice and maybe that works for some people if that fits the budget [and] if it’s a restful time away from the children. [But] sometimes it’s more stressful to be away from your children. [However], if I can’t be gracious for myself, how am I going to do that for my kids?

We can set boundaries for ourselves, but we still have to be able to have grace. If I didn’t get everything done, I need to have grace on myself, and know that I did my best. Or maybe I truly didn’t do my best today and spent too much time on my phone, but still having grace and, I can do this better tomorrow. This is something I can work on, and I am patient with myself.

I’m an extrovert. Major extrovert! Way extraverted! So I struggle saying home, especially as I’m going to pursue homeschooling. I need to have grace for myself when I don’t stay at home, and things fall apart, and I can’t get everything done.

The Real Self-Care We Need

Sarah: Yeah, I love that! You brought in the whole self-care thing. I love taking bubble baths and sipping on wine and putting cucumbers on my eyes! [Sarcasm]. No, not really! I love the true self-care, which is when we can learn how to talk kindly to ourselves, the same way we talk to our friends. The real self-care is giving yourself time outs when you need to The whole idea that self-care has become all about taking bubble baths and putting cucumbers on our eyes really just makes self-care a joke.

I understand that [self-care] is a new trend, but that’s [bubble baths and cucumbers] really not what self-care is. Self-care is allowing yourself to enjoy a hobby that you’ve enjoyed before, or giving yourself time to look in the mirror and talk kindly to yourself, (and not giving yourself ugly comments and criticizing yourself constantly). Like you said, it’s all about giving yourself grace and the ability to be patient with yourself when you’re learning and growing in a new way.

I do appreciate that you brought that into the conversation because in the same way that we’re choosing love, grace, and patience with others, we do need to be choosing them for ourselves too. 

Tani: Yeah! We need to truly get at what we’re needing care for.

Affirmations to Empower You: Choosing Love, Grace, and Patience

Can you think of 1-3 positive affirmations that directly relate to this topic of choosing love, grace, and patience and that will help us take action on this in our relationships with others?

Tani:

1. You have the power to choose love, grace, & patience.
2. Your beauty resides in your ability to choose love, grace, & patience.

Thank you so much Tani for sharing your heart today! You have so many wonderful examples of what choosing love, grace, and patience truly look like. Such great insights, and I hope readers will take all this to heart. I appreciate you!

Key Highlights & Take Action Steps for Choosing Love, Grace, and Patience

Because of the way this particular conversation, I have chosen to combine the key highlights and the take action steps primarily because they flow much better in reading that way and the take action steps are directly related to the key highlights.

The key highlights are highlighted in green while the take action steps are bulleted underneath each highlight.

Our young children can often make poor choices and/or messy accidents. They do this mostly out of impulsive curiosity and desire to explore. Our response can either break that beautiful spirit, or nurture it.

• In providing correction to your young children, do so in a way that still nurtures their curiosity and desire to explore their world.

Your response to others doesn’t have to end poorly.

• Choose to respond well after having responded poorly.
• Apologize! Learn to do it and do it often.
• When it comes to conflicts with others, take your eyes off yourself. This will enable you to more readily choose love, grace, and patience.

Human touch does break tension.

• Give a hug when conflicts arise.

Laughter is a stress-reducing medicine.

• When conflict arises and tension increases, or when circumstances are troubling, find ways to laugh together.

If you are a parent, your children are watching and learning from you. Choosing love, grace, and patience are therefore, especially important when they are present. They are very aware of your thoughts and feelings towards your spouse.

• Do everything you can to show love towards your spouse.
• If you can’t do it for you or your spouse, do it for your children.

Heated discussion can happen with those close to us, whether a spouse, grown child, housemate, sibling, or other family member. Choosing love, grace, and patience is a sure way to reach resolution.

• When in a heated conversation with someone, if you’re not in a good headspace, put a pause on the conversation. Commit to come back to it when your mind is clear.
• Do your best to understand the perspective of others. Don’t hesitate to tell them you understand. This will release tension.
• Don’t push buttons! Doing this will only escalate the situation or the conversation.
• Do something to clear and declutter your head. Sleeping on it works wonders.

Change happens, but not quickly, and certainly not overnight.

• Recognize the progress you and others are making, even if it is small progress.

Real self-care is:

• Choosing love, grace, and patience for yourself.
• Talking kindly to yourself
• Taking time outs to clear your head when necessary
• Enjoying a hobby you love
• Recognizing your own progress and growth and celebrating it.

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Choosing Love, Grace, and Patience-Because Your Relationships Matter