Patience Builds Strong Foundations

I used to think that being strong meant being quick when I was younger.

Quick to answer, quick to fix, quick to win.

I believed that if you weren't quick, you would be behind schedule.

But my dad had a different way of life.

It wasn't the loud strength you see in movies. It wasn't busy. Steady.

Sometimes so small that you would not even notice them if you weren't paying attention.

This afternoon is so clear in my mind.

Building a model airplane was my school project.

I was excited at first. I tore the box open and threw everything on the table. There are wings, glue, and little wheels that move all over the place. The directions were hard to understand.

Small writing. Several difficult steps.

Within twenty minutes, I was angry.

The wings wouldn't stick right. The glue dried in a strange way. When I tried to force it, I broke one of the pieces. I yelled, "I can't do this!" with tears in my eyes.

I took everything off the table.

I believed my dad would become angry. Or he could just fix it himself and be done with it.

He didn't, though.

He came over, careful picked up the broken wing, and then sat down next to me.

He said, "Looks tricky," as if he were seeing the problem for the first time and not criticizing me for it.

"Slow down. We could have missed something."

He didn't hurry. He didn't help me fix it.

He did nothing but sit there and read the directions to me, one tiny, hard-to-understand step at a time.

That day, I felt like giving up a lot.

As I stared at him, I hoped he would say,

"Okay, I'll just finish it."

He never did, though.

He didn't leave.

Patient. Stay calm. He didn't seem to mind the time.

It took us hours that night to fix what I did wrong and start over where we needed to.

That plane was put together piece by piece.

Something wasn't right.

When I showed it to the class, it shook a little. It was mine, though. Ours.

I learned something from him even though he didn't say it.

That real strength isn't in moving quickly

This is what keeps you going when things get tough. It means having faith that bad starts can still lead to good things.

I remembered that night when life started giving me bigger problems, like harder tests, failed job interviews, and friendships that fell apart, years later.

I would breathe more slowly and secretly tell myself,

"One step at a time. Like putting that plane together."

He taught me something else without saying much.

I was about nine years old.

We were building a swing set in the back yard.

It came in a huge, heavy box with a thousand bolts and nuts.

I didn't want to wait and was rushing to put the pieces together because I thought I knew how things should go.

Dad would carefully take the parts apart, read the instructions again, and then start slowly. He would measure everything twice before tightening even one bolt.

"Why are you being so slow?" I asked him, angry.

"We could just guess."

He laughed and said,

"Because mistakes take twice as long to fix when you're in a hurry. You only have to build it once if you go steady."

That also stuck with me.

For more than just building swing sets. But for all time.

A friend once told a story about her dad as well

She said it took her months of hard work to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels.

With one light touch on her back, her dad would walk with her on the sidewalk every night after dinner.

He never yelled.

Never pushed her.

He would say, "It's okay" even when she fell twenty times and scraped her knees and cried.

"When you're ready, let's try again. "

What she remembered most about riding wasn't the time she finally got it and didn't fall.

One way he taught her was by never making her feel like a failure. Things like this stick around. When you are little, there are some lessons you just can't explain.

Long after the fact, when you're going through a tough time and you hear a voice inside you say,

"That's fine. One step at a time."

What I learned from those times

Patience is a kind of silent power.

It's not show off.

It doesn't yell.

It shows up when you're mad and want to give up.

It shows up when you feel lost and small.

Even when it would be easy to leave, it stays right next to you.

Fathers who are patient with you, not by making you do things their way, but by being there for you when things get hard, teach you more than just how to get things done quickly.

They teach you to take your time building things.

That you can take your time and it is okay.

That you're not failing because it took longer than you thought.

Patience does more than just finish things.

It makes people stronger.

That kind of strength doesn't break when it's put under stress.

The kind of heart that doesn't give up even when things get hard.

The kind of faith that knows that slow won't break.

Things get stronger over time by growing slowly.

Maybe the best lessons aren't the ones that are told to you out loud.

They might be the ones you get to know by living with someone for a long time.

It's possible that patience is the best way to show love. And maybe that's the real way to build strong foundations.