The Truth Of Tolerance

Be patient with everyone.

1 THESSALONIANS 5:14

“GARY, I KIND OF LOCKED THE KEYS IN THE CAR.”

I put down the phone, ready to drive over and bail Lisa out, but when I went to retrieve another set of keys, I noticed the empty hooks where we keep Lisa’s car keys. Apparently, Lisa had lost the last set. I had to go through her coats, her pants, her purse, her shoulder bags—anything I could think of—to find a key so I could get her home.

Lisa is a lastborn, and she does lastborn things. She loses stuff. She “forgets” her purse or leaves her wallet at the store. Just the other day she told me, “You know, I haven’t seen my Starbucks credit card in three months, but nobody’s used it, so I figure it must be lost at home.”

She saw the look of horror on my face.

“No big deal,” she said. “It’ll turn up.”

She saw my look of doubt.

“Someday.”

Some things, Lisa never thinks to buy. Take toilet paper, for instance. I came home from a speaking trip one time and discovered that our three bathrooms had a grand total of one-fifth of a roll of toilet paper, which the family members were dutifully passing around until I got home to buy some more.

“You know,” I said, “they sell this stuff at the store.” But for whatever reason, if I don’t buy our toilet paper, we’ll never have it.

After a couple decades of marriage, Lisa and I have accepted that some things will never change, because they won’t. Lisa’s a lastborn; she’s not a proactive, type-A firstborn, and I can’t expect her to become an entirely different person just because she’s married to me. Lisa has learned that I can leave a mess and not even see the mess; it’s not deliberate, but it’s frustrating all the same.

“This is all very fine, Gary,” some readers might be thinking, “but what does this have to do with parenting?”

Plenty.

Our youngest daughter once expressed her frustration with one of Lisa’s lastborn characteristics. It sounded a little extreme in the moment to tell her, “You know what, Kelsey? That’s never going to change, so you may as well get used to it,” but there was, nonetheless, a valuable teaching moment. One day Kelsey is going to marry a man, and the day will surely come when she has to learn to live with real disappointment. This disappointment will inconvenience her, frustrate her, at times perplex her, and occasionally even anger her.

How providential, then, that God has given her two imperfect parents who can teach her the value and necessity of tolerance! As my kids get older, I’m more and more aware of my responsibility to prepare them for married life. They probably get tired of hearing it, but I stress how the skills for family life they develop as brother and sister, son and daughter, will come into great use as husband and wife, father and mother. If they don’t learn these skills now, they’re going to have to learn them then, and it’ll be much easier for them if they can begin marriage with these skills rather than weigh down a future relationship in its early stages.

Tolerance is a key virtue for communal living. I almost hesitate to use the word tolerance, as it has been co-opted by many in our culture to justify obscene forms of evil—but the word still has meaning, value, and truth. Family life grows miserable without tolerance and patience.

This week, consider whether you’re missing some prime teaching opportunities. How do your kids see you respond to your spouse’s limitations or personality quirks? Are they learning that you deal with the frustration by belittling your spouse in front of your kids? By gossiping about him or her to your friends? Or do they see you dealing with it by building up and being gracious where he or she falls short?

A tolerant wife or husband can make the difference between a home where joy and peace reside and a home where the pressure and tension become so thick you get a headache by merely walking through the door.

Let’s teach tolerance.

Heavenly Father, give us your delight in each other so that we can celebrate our differences with enthusiasm and learn to tolerate frustrations with grace, so that our home remains a place of joy and delight rather than frustration and judgment. In Jesus’ name, amen.