PERSEVERANCE

Perseverance 9-20-09 this is the presentation i did in our ABF at church when i facilitated the last chapter of a book we had been studying called Spiritual diciplines for the christian life, by whitney


Perseverance…….The act of presevering….continued patient effort…..adhearing to a course of action, belief or a purpose…..steadfastness……remaining constant to a purpose, idea, or task in spite of obstacles or discouragement…….refusal to stop…..hang in….hang on…..hold on….endure…..stay the course……stick with…..stick to…..follow….uphold…..carry on….continue……BEAR under……

1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

To BEAR; I have used the analogy of the birth process….to bear down….takes a lot of focus…energy…determination….perseverance…..will power and self denial…..you wonder if you can survive long enough to catch your next breath….

I believe some biblical versions say ‘handle’ instead of bear….or we loosely interpret ‘bear’ as it won’t hurt…. won’t be highly difficult and challenging…..I on the other hand believe and have experienced that; ….God promises us that in temptation, trials or challenges (in which we may be tempted to sin or give up) he says, it will not be more than we can ‘bear’….. ‘bear’ as in birth….. The shear ability to take breathe, be alive and give praise and petition. Even if it is thru gasped breaths.

* I clean for an elderly gentleman of 86 years, who has suffered with diabetes his whole life….his mother told him if you live long enough to lose both legs…you will be blessed! And he has, as well as suffered multiple heart attacks. And officially been dead 5 times! He has one of the best attitudes I have ever seen. When I great him and ask how are you this week Al? He always grins and says well, I am able to sit up and take nourishment….and he is serious! He loves the Lord and takes perseverance serious!

The author of the book talks about the fact that despite our labor saving devices and technological advancements we are more and more being robbed of our leisure time than the last generation. He further notes that reading this book may also make us feel even more discouraged ie; one more thing to “have” to do making us feel like “a tired staggering juggler on a high wire trying to keep a dozen eggs in the air with someone else wanting to throw you a half dozen more!” And I think if most of us are honest….It Does!

He also talks about evaluating our priorities……I have personally given this a lot of thought…and I believe it is to each person to decide this……but here are a few things for thought…..material things require maintenance….and so do relationships, keeping our house clean and laundry done is important….but so is quality time with our Lord, spouses and children….being involved in activities is good….but serving people in need is imperitive. He also says that Laziness never leads to Godliness, we can’t stop everything, but we do need to evaluate……God expects us to be busy….but busy with what?

He also points out that even if our natural temperment isn’t bent towards orderly discipline…the presence of the holy spirit within you equips you with enough of a supernatural “spirit of …self discipline” for you to obey the command to “discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness…….It is the Holy Spirit who is causing you to persevere…..bear up under……so does that leave us any excuse?

God himself helps us pray. When we “do not know what we ought to pray for….the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express (Rom 8:26)

Have you been there? Where you haven’t known how to pray? It is only the groaning of your spirit that leads you….or speaks on your behalf?

What is the hardest thing you have ever had to persevere thru?

How did you get thru it? Practically , emotionally, spiritually?

Why did you perservere?

AT THIS POINT I SHARED WITH MY ABF THE TWO LIFE THREATENING EXPIERIENCES WE HAD WITH OUR GIRLS ONLY WEEKS APART.....OUR OLDEST DAUGHTERS RAPE AND AND OUR YOUNGEST DAUGHTERS CORODID BLEED (A COMPLICATION OF HER TONSILLECTOMY-RESULTING IN EMERGENCY SURGERY. OF COURSE I DIDN'T GET THRU IT WITH OUT TEARS....(SOBBING) ACTUALLY.....IT CAUGHT ME BY SURPRISE B/C I FELT LIKE I HAD MOVED PAST THOSE THINGS....THE TERROR THE PAIN THE ACCEPTANCE, ANGER, GRIEF, THE DREDDED REALITY....BUT YET TO TELL THE STORY.......STRUCK A CORD THAT I THOUGHT I HAD DETACHED FROM.......AND THERE ARE MANY OTHER HARD THINGS WE HAVE PERSEVERED.....AND YET I STRUGGLE AND STRIVE TO MAKE MY REALATIONSHIP WITH MY CREATOR......THERE ARE DAYS WHEN I LACK PERSEVERANCE........WHY IS THAT?

Lyrics to ‘He is there’ by Mandeesa
There’s a time to live
And a time to die
There’s a time to laugh
And a time to cry
There’s a time for war
And a time for peace
There’s a hand to hold
In the worst of these
He is with you when your faith is dead
And you can’t even get out of bed
Or your husband doesn’t kiss you anymore
He is with you when your baby’s gone
And your house is still,
And your heart’s a stone
Cryin’ God, what’d You do that for
He is with you
There’s a time for yes
And a time for no
There’s a time to be angry
And a time to let it go
There is a time to run
And a time to face it
There is love to see you
Through all of this
He is with you in the conference room
When the world is coming down on you
And your wife and kids don’t know you anymore
He is with you in the ICU
When the doctors don’t know what to do
And it scares you to the core
He is with you
We may weep for a time
But joy will come in the morning
The morning light
He is with you when your kids are grown
When there’s too much space
And you feel alone
And you’re worried if you
got it right or wrong
Yes He is with you
when you’ve given up on ever finding your true love
Someone who feels like home
He is with you
When nothing else is left
And you take your final breath ….He is with you!

…some of you may have experienced many of these things in your life time already…..bless you…….many of you may not have…..bless you. God allows different trials and challenges…blessings and joys…..but all are intended for our growth and our relationship with Him. If you have been blessed to have gone thru “tough stuff” you understand perseverance on a survival level……but what He is commanding us is sooooo much simpler……why then is it sooo hard? Is it too, not survival? It is building our eternity…building the kingdom (this life is momentary) Those of you who have been blessed with maybe less trials, may not have the experiential “survival mode” pace, to pull from, but again. What he is asking us isn’t torturous, or pain staking. It is to enter more fully into knowing our creator…..our very breath of Life.

A Fast Day

'This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, God will answer. You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.' -'If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places--firm muscles, strong bones. You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.      Isaiah 58:9-12 MSG

As I sit here this beautiful morning, reading this portion of scripture, sipping hot cider, (it feels like fall here) as the sun pours in over my desk.  The birds are singing and the breeze drifting softly in.....I think how beautiful this world is.  No I am not overlooking the property we onced owned, but even so there is such beauty all around.  Yet, as I listen to the news and the what is going on around the world to say nothing of what is going on right outside our back doors....such ugliness. 

I was reminded and challenged as I read in Isaiah ....how much how we live......is becoming our very demise....our transportation habits, how we purchase, how we communicate,  what we eat, what we drink, the medications that are quickly perscribed to us, (fast medicine) and the ones so readily available to us, are negatively effecting us....even destroying us.....You can't miss it, just listen to the news, read health articles.....even facebook, everyone is talking about it, go green, go natural,  H1N1 will kill you but hey news flash so might the vaccine, Wear sunscreen the sun will kill you.....newsflash Vit D deficiancy is epidemic.  Get this new better cell phone ...reception everywhere...newsflash brain tumors connected with wireless use.....buy this new headset and protect your self.....to say nothing of the wireless 'whatevers' that are floating in the air everywhere.  I even read an article about 2nd hand exposure to wireless equipment and the threat to children!!! whether we are talking about how we eat or how we bring our children into this world and then how to protect them, or how we communicate and commute, Care for the needy, eldery, less priveledged......The result seems the same...we are destroying our own kind! 

 I couldn't help but think about how restless we are as human beings, always wanting more, quicker, cheaper, living faster, close to the wire, splitting ourselves into many pieces to attain what the world tells us success is.  In someways it is what we feel we need to do to survive in this fast paced, instant gratification generation.  but, in an odd twist we find that the very things that have brought us to this point...(out of the dark ages) are in many ways destroying us....to say nothing of the homelessness, abuse, neglect, abandonment and crime in our nation, most of which I am often too busy to see or do anything about..... save our whales? (not that it isn't important) but, how about save our babies? .Care for the elderly?........Feed a stray dog?....simple.... but what about the many people that go to bed in a box hungry every night?......How do we fix these things.....restore our nation?  reclaim ourselves? It seems that the move ironicly may be backwards to some of the things our ancestors once did.  going back to the earth, gardening, preserving,  COOKING!  eating slower, better, finding more 'natural alternatives' to our health issues.....co-op'ing,  biking, walking, using technology and the 'speed' it brings to our lives in balance and moderacy.  Taking the time to think before jumping...not jump and ask questions later.  Putting our spirituality, family, relationships, and health at the top of the list, not the bottom.....Loving my neighbor.... Taking time to appreciate the beauty that still exists around us....with in us.....BREATHE!.......Slow down.......find a quiet place meditate and pray.....listen to the creator.....Hopefully if I heed these warnings........make some needed changes I will still be here to watch my granchildren enjoy it, appreciate it. Live life to it fullest as God intended.....Possibly it isn't to late to teach the next generation so they'll be known 'as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.' As well as its not too late for me.
 

Ambush

I have to thank my daughter for ambushing me to this internet thing called "facebook"  Un beknownst to me she set me up a page.  "just try it mom"  was what she said.  I have to admit at first I was slightly annoyed....as I need one more thing to do....one more responsibility or expectation.....but I have to admit now, that I have quite enjoyed the reconnecting, learning and networking I have done.  Allowing myself this priveledge to sit and do this semmingly idle non-productive activity.....

One of the reconnects I have made is a friend of mine from highschool she has a fantastic blog!  called Reading Risa!   She writes and I laugh, cry, comisserate, or cheer her on.  I am convinced she is in my head.  It has been such a great thing!  As I was reading her latest entry I was struck by something she referred to....she said she had never been referred to as 'laid back'.....hmmm I thought neither have I!  in fact I am sure it is the last thing anyone would think about me.  I have been called anal,  a neat freak, headstrong, accused of being unable to say no.....but laid back,....not so much. 

I got to thinking about that.  As I shared in my first blog entry.....we have been thru alot of changes in this last decade of our life....I find that life has moved much faster than I anticipated, the gap between my parents and I doesn't seem so infinate.  Life and how I live it has become much more important.  There is so much I thought I would have done and accomplished by now.....but life has a way of beating you up out there.  And as my friend has said what we have been told the "scripts" in our heads as she puts it aren't necessarily the only way to live. 

I want to live out loud a little bit more.....instead of keeping my shoulder to the grindstone so much, or keeping up with the Jones' ( who are they anyway )........Seriously, I can't even tell you the last time I sat and sipped a glass of ice tea on the front porch with a neighbor.....everything is hurry hurry......It seems in someways life has amped up since our girls left home.....I started my career a little late in life, and the maintenance it requires is a little more exhausting than what I had anticipated. The job I keep to maintain paying our bills is not one I want......the overlap of these two worlds coupled with serving the needs of family and friends, building and nourishing relationships, spending time and learning about this "season" of life with my husband, and desiring to find time for myself....... being more diciplined to the things that matter the most to me and figuring out what those things are......

I want to live a life pleasing to the Lord, enjoying the relationship I have with my husband, learning what being friends and mentors to my daughters looks like and playing with and savoring my grandbabies......to exercise in a fashion that is beneficial to me, journal/blog,  spend time in the word.....make time to read on things that are beneficial or maybe just for fun..... make time for relationships with people I can relate to......feel secure and free enough to travel??.( well when we have the money)......adjusting.....or am I??

I have found that I am very driven by expectation....both my own and others....breaking this cycle and focusing not so much on expectation but on what is really important and valuable is a tough shift.  So I purge forward....trying to sift thru what the build up of life and its demands has brought to me and decide what has to stay.....and what can go.....so much of it exists in my head, how I think, have been trained to think, percieve, anticipate and expect....prioritize......

Maybe.... I will not expect so much from myself, possibly my priorities are not as purposed as they are learned or possibly dismissed for the list I am conditioned to achieve......begin to anticipate healthy change and reprieve, strive to percieve from an eternity perspective, and think.... more the way I photograph life......with a little less structure and task drinveness....Breathing......enjoying.....with more flexability.....a little more out of the box......and laid back! 

by the way do catch http://www.readingrisa.wordpress.com/  you will be blessed!

Meanderings of May- Things that matter...

The last decade of my life has been a lesson in perserverance.  I am a wife of a loving husband of 26 years in November and I, have come to know that he is my soul mate.  We have 2 amazing young women as our daughters and their husbands who have brought two fantastic grandkids into our lives, and one on the way!  Talk about life changing events.  I am a bit of an eclectic of careers; I have homeschooled, worked as a chiropractic assistant, worked in adult foster care, Volunteered in youth groups and parent groups, coached cheerleading and taught P.E. and worked as a secretary to a small christian school principle.  I have supplemented our income owning a small cleaning business, but my passion is photography.  Three years ago I partnered with a Studio owner and now own my own photography business and co-manage the studio. I also co-instruct continuing education and student photography with my partner and my daughter who is a photographer for me and my graphic artist to whom without,  my photographic creations would never come to reality! My husband is a supervisor at an Amish custom cabinetry business, and dabbles in parting out motorcycles and refurbishing used cars.  There really isn't anything he can't fix!  We have come to enjoy this empty nesting season of our life love watching movies we haven't seen and having carry out chinese on our living room floor.

I have come to this season in my life finding that I am not even in the same geographic area that I once saw my life being.  Our home is no where near paid for, we no longer own property, We don't even posses a portfolio or retirement fund......most people would see that is failure, or at least failure to plan, although if you know us you would know that is really not the case.  At times I must admit though that I too feel that way.  But today is the anniversary of my husbands father's death and the birthday of his grandfather who is also deceased.  When I pause to think of both of those men in our life and the youth in which his father died, It is not the possesions or wealth they emassed in their lifetime, but the legacy that they left with us, the lessons they taught us, the faith they lived out in front of us and the amazing wife/ daughter that they left behind. ( My husbands mother)  The strength and encouragement, perserverance, courage and faith in the Lord even when she does not understand or perhaps doesn't agree with him....These things that they have taught and demonstrated to me will live on forever. Even when she too is gone. These things can only be emassed in our hearts!

My dad broke his hip last month.  My mother will make sure to tell you "it was not a fraility break" He was playing starwars with his 6 and 2 year old grandsons ( light sabers and all!) out on the unlevel ground of their newly constructed home.  My parents take their health very seriously, and they have taught all of their offspring the same principles.  They are truly testimants to the success of that.  they are 69 and 66 respectively, but most that meet them will tell you they don't look a day over 55 or maybe 60 and don't act a day over 45....I have to say that because I am going to be 45 next year!  They lived in a camper for an entire winter while they worked on building their new home.  They travel from home to home of those of their kids that don't live locally but while they are there or in any of our homes you will not find them leisurly laying by the pool, reading the newest novel, golfing or playing tennis.....they are usually most concerned with what is on the top of your list of things they can do for you!  Plumbing, planting, painting, childcare, cooking, and laundry (My mothers personal favorite)  Dad is a retiree of GM and is a jack of all trades.  He is a perfectionist and even things he knows nothing about he will usually figure out.  My mom is a retired teacher, but continues to teach us plenty as she lives out her life before us.  She continues to carry a couple of interesting jobs, she works in a country store, works for a nutritionist and runs her own organic co-op!  and she is an amazing quilter.  Both of my parents are very talented and artistic and have gifted each of us that in some way, as well as teaching all of us a strong work ethic.  Most of all though they are committed....committed to the Lord, each other and their family.  We all keep in touch with them, in different intervals and intensities  via the usual ways, email, mail, phone calls, pop in visits...  (I often wonder how many emails they answer and phone conversations they have in a week that are just from our little clan) well, I say little,  it totals at 8 children 7 spouses, 18 grandchildren and 2.5 great grandchildren.  Their legacy isn't easy to miss.

So as I sit and asses my life....our life.....We have 26 almost years of  a sucessful marriage.  2 married daughters, and 2.5 grandchildren, we own a motorcycle and love to explore new places on it, Jobs that pay our bills and enough to help out another.  We have good health a sense of belonging, Compassion for others, and haven't forgotten how to laugh and cry.   Life is sometimes messy, and painful, and challenging....there is much of the last decade of our lives that is marked with tears and pain....and lessons learned hard.....but more than that it is marked with growth, and maturity and an ever growing understanding of the things that matter and things that don't