Endurance

The wheel... has endured the test of time

2 Cor. 4:16 "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."

Endurance

This post was going to be titled I’m Done, had it been written and posted yesterday. Instead, I chose to close down, go inside my head and feel the angst that I was being asked to endure. 

I had an extremely stressed filled month with my son seeking a job, the death in the family from chemo no less (I’m from the school cancer doesn’t kill, chemo does), and then there was hubby and his needed eye doctor appointment and a dental visit. Then there was me tossed in the middle with my illness and need to pick a new doctor. 

All of this came flurrying around my face like confetti from the sky. I blew it away as a wayward strand of hair falling in my face, but the stress had mounted and I could feel the shift, the pain, the hurt. I was trying so hard but it all came crashing around me and I was about ready to give up. I’m done, I said, I’m just done!

My thoughts and feelings were getting hard to catalog. I could not compartmentalize them, I had to face each one head on, I had to endure. I woke this morning with a swift slap in the face with a God moment. My Encouragement For The Day came via my Bible Gateway message. 

This is what greeted me today, first thing in the quiet of the morning:

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5 (ESV)

Wow, this is one not to be scanned over real quick; I was forced to read it after that intro. I went through word after word, the writer was a twenty-five-year breast cancer survivor and now after all of these years she’s faced with her daughter having to go through the same exact illness. She couldn’t protect her daughter from this event, they would just have to endure it, together. I’ll hit the high points of the email: Suffering produces endurance, Endurance produces character, character produces hope. 

There it is in a nutshell HOPE! I woke to hope! Yesterday I was done, I was giving up, I was just ready to shove a slice of pizza in my face, stop all supplements, have everyone laugh at me and say I told ya so, and I was making plans in my head to go home, to my Heavenly Home, that is. And I woke to this message of hope. What am I supposed to do with that? Endure and have continued hope is what!

2 Cor. 4:17-18 (KJV) “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Stress level on a scale of one to ten – nine! let’s go over it:

Me- In need of finding a doctor for this serious illness invading my body. (more on that in later posts)

My son – He found a really good job making good money and a week after he started, he asked for a week vacation at the end of July; a vacation to go to Kentucky to meet online friends. That’s what I taught him, run off and meet your online friends. He’s twenty-one and I cannot stop this train from going down the track, I have my own stress and seriously don’t need this, but it is what it is. He has a hard-as-a-rock head on his shoulders and I can’t say anything. (wow, he’s just like his mother!)

My hubby - An eye doctor’s appointment went well, but the eye doctor of eight years told us this would be the last time we’d see him. Shock, hurt, memories, everything came through the floodgates!

A funeral – Need I say more? His aunt succumbed to chemo.

The dentist – No insurance and a filling it wasn’t meant to be. I won’t say any more than that. This was the tip of the iceberg of a stressful month. Especially when the (doctor’s wife, hygienist) looked at me and asked if I was my husbands' mother. Insult after insult (my brother-in-law writes too, as a hobby, she says.) “Good thing you weren’t working so you could drive your husband to all of the doctor’s appointments.”  Slice after slice, cut, chop, throw me to the wolves. The wolf being a gray-haired, forty-five-year-old overworked mother. I was her target for the day and wonder how she even has the job she has.

I left in tears, wanting to just go home to the Lord. I’m done, I can’t handle this. I can’t handle all of the doubts coming through via my screen from people who say they support me but are really living Doubting Thomas’! The message of what to eat vs. what not to eat, what to take and what not to take, email after email asking to buy this cure in a bottle. No money has me deleting the majority of the supplement spiel.

I woke to find the email telling me to endure. To be filled with hope during a most trying time. To have faith where others wane. To stand tall and muddle through this thickened mire. It is my job to give hope and here I was being filled. I need a break from stress and worry. I need to stand in a downpour and release all that ails me. I need to embrace the journey and walk with hope in my hand.

The Holy Spirit flowing through us is God and His earthly blood/waters running through our veins. There is no doubting in the floodwaters. There may be pain, there sure will be stress, you’ll face trials of ignorance from the outside world but you’ll find the strength in God to endure, whatever it is you have to endure to get through another day.

Isa. 26:4 (KJV) “Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:”

I give all praise and Glory to God! 

Alleluia AMEN!