Endurance

Endurance

What do you think of when you hear the word endurance?

Is it how long you think your dishwasher is going to last, how long you can run for, or how long you can endure your co workers stories about her dog Mattie?

I was thinking this week about endurance, perhaps it was because I was feeling particularly farmish as I was shoveling a whole pick up truck full of sawdust for the coops.

OK, so yes I was very thankful for the free sawdust, but I didn’t know it would be so hard to get.

 If you know me you also know that God didn’t see fit to bless me with a lot of height…Fine you win, I am close to being a midget!

I had to walk down the sawdust hill shovel the sawdust, then walk back up and throw it in the truck, by my self, times a bazillion over again. Then when I was home unload it, ugh my muscles. I think that counted for a gym class back in the city!

So this prompted me to think about endurance.

My Good friend is moving and as I watch her go through much of the same struggles as I have just been through it brings me to think about how hard it was to sort, pile, and dump a life into cardboard.

Then move it all to an unfamiliar place, and try to figure out where to begin again.

This is where the rubber meets the road endurance comes in.

No one likes to move, go through labor, or train for a marathon but the end product is what you long for, what makes the trial worthwhile.

Remember holding that new sweet smelling baby, your labor pains are all but forgotten.

When you are all unpacked and have your pictures hanging and the kitchen organized, life begins. You feel a sense of joy rush through you knowing you did it, you persevered and accomplished something worthwhile.

Being almost Easter my favorite illustration would be that of the resurrection morning. When Jesus came out of the tomb, how happy he was that our salvation was secured, that the horrors of the cross were over!

Looking at it this way I can’t very well feel grumpy and dissatisfied when I am “enduring” I am reminded that character and substance are made from endurance. I do wish it were not so hard, but I can take comfort in knowing the end result is going to be sweet!

Romans 5:3-4

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,