Thursday, June 2, 2011

Keep Going Forward

Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.

-- 2 Thessalonians 1:4

The other day I arrived home from Georgia and came face to face with a very irritable mother. Her excuse? Her husband had procrastinated on a chore. He needed her help and she couldn’t do the things she needed to do because she was waiting for him. How inconsiderate!

I tried not to laugh. Not very successfully, I might add. But I did try. See I understood exactly what she was talking about. Really. Because I encounter it every single day, all day long. From them.

That’s the thing about being critical of others. Usually it’s the very thing we dislike so much in others that we also dislike so vehemently in ourselves. We don’t want others to mirror our flaws back at us. And we certainly don’t want to deal with the aggravation that comes from dealing with those flaws.

It’s difficult to keep going some days. And, yet, we must. I must. As hard as it is to allow my life, my world, to revolve around two people who have no inkling of how difficult that truly is. I believe that God has called me to this place, to this time. To grow closer to Him. To learn how to depend on Him. Day by day. To understand deep within that only He can save me from the evils that sometimes surround me.

Some days I see myself reflected back at me and it truly scares me. It’s an eye-opening fact check that sends my behavior and attitude in a different direction. And, frequently, to my Bible.

The weight of others’ expectations can be a burden that some days seems too heavy to bear. I am reminded that I don’t have to carry that burden alone. And, when it seems overwhelming, I can simply hand it off to the One who is far stronger than I. It allows me to laugh and let go when the strain gets to be too much.

We all have trials in this life. We all are placed in situations, sooner or later, where we have to do what we’d rather not simply because God’s will is that we do. And, most of the time, knowing that He knows what He’s doing is enough.