Perseverance

Jones Onigbinde – Great Mother Heart …

Have you ever had a truly awful day – whether it’s work or school or personal issues, whatever the case may be – where you felt like giving up and railed against the unfairness of the world?  How did you deal with it?  Did you wallow in self-pity, anger, and/or resentment?  For how long?  What did it take for you to get up and get back out there to deal with whatever it was that sent you down the emotional rabbit-hole?

Whenever I’m faced with a negative situation, I think back to what all my mother dealt with, how she handled it, and most importantly how she dealt with it without letting it impact or affect her children.  We knew she was making sacrifices for us but I truly believe that until you are an adult (especially if you have your own children now), you never really understand how difficult it is to deal with life and world issues while protecting and shielding your children as best you can.

One of my favorite encouragements from the Scripture is:

“Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5: 1-5”

Here is an excerpt from page 7 of my book, Great Mother Heart:

My mother could have said that the world wasn’t fair, and she would have been right, for all I know.  She could have blamed the same God, to whom she prayed daily, for my father’s death when I was only four.  She could have blamed my father, the system, the community or our country for our circumstances and abject poverty.  She could have bemoaned her fate as a widowed mother of six children.  But she did none of these.  She did what a mother could have done best, she persevered.  She stood her ground. The tides were against her, but she sailed anyway.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed I just think back to what my mother dealt with on a daily basis and remember how she did it with a smile and a hug and an encouraging word for me and it allows me to focus, concentrate on persevering, pray, and work through the problem at hand.

It would be easy to curl into a ball, blame the world, and marinate in self-pity.  However, as my mother taught me, that doesn’t solve the problem and when you finally stand back up, the issue is still there and may have worsened due to not dealing with it!

Who do you look to for the inspiration and motivation to deal with hardships?  Do you have a story to share?  I’d love to hear it!

May you be blessed as you rely on Christ in the face of sore trials. Perseverance produces resilience.