There are runners on the track, running swiftly around the red rubber topped asphalt lanes, the wind blowing them either forward or back, the sounds of the masses in the crowds completely blocked out. They have trained for this journey, they know exactly how many paces are measured with each breath, how fast or faster to go depending on the length of the race and their bodies have learned over a lifetime of strength training, the pounds of pressure put on the pavement and what it does to their feet and knees and hips. Their defined muscles reveal the time spent in the weight room and the power behind the ballet movement of grace that marches them down to the finish line. But they weren’t always the warrior they appear to be.
When you were a child, you were spastic in nature with no ability to regulate caution or time or gesture. You were adorable and gave out unconditional love. But you were infinitely needy and your exhausted parents remember remarkably little of your childhoods but memories of chubby dimpled fingers and wet kisses sustain even the most blurred of days.
Then you grew into a smart (alecky) teenager who was gangly and secretive, incapable of self-discipline or wise choices, you slipped in and out of child/adult phases by the hour but you could hold surprisingly intelligent conversations and you developed an wicked sense of humor and there were hints of hope that one day, you would remember some of the training in how to eat without shoving food whole into your mouths and to possibly remember a birthday that is not your own.
Training and education and a mother trove of love have finally paid off when her adult children turn into compassionate and giving human beings fully capable of sending another generation into orbit and thus begin again a next generation greater than the one before.
We endure. Our children endure. One. Day. At. A. Time.
In marriage, in addition to the date nights and the cuddling on the couch with Netflix, shared holidays, vacations and everyday life experiences, there are often disagreements where you feel like you’ve gone ‘round and ‘round on opposite sides of the same argument and you think you can’t go ‘round one single time more. But you do. Something enables you to move forward, to pivot, to extend the branch of peace another time. Endurance allows you to soften your stance and not dig in your child-self heels, to see the other’s point of view. You love deeper, you grow stronger.
Ask any parent of children over 13 and they will tell you that the days are long but the years are short. For those over 50, the days become shorter still and the years are mere whispers.
Jesus wants us to forgive 70 times 7, because He knew that’s how we would grow in faith and grow in love and because He did it for us first.
Endurance. It is what propels us forward to another day. It is what ignites in us an energy born of just an ember to set free a blaze if we would just softly blow into the heat, and fan a silent flame.
A runner does not look at the finish line when he runs. He sees only a blur of what is directly in front of him. A couple in young love cannot possibly fathom what a 50 year anniversary would encapsulate in celebrating. A lifetime of compromise earns a lifetime of honor and loyalty and friendship and deep, deep resolve. A young mother cannot comprehend what joys that grandparenting awaits as a reward for enduring the tired and “terrible two’s”, “threes”, “thirteens” and beyond.
Endurance is but one stronghold at a time. We cannot see what the future of post covid can look like. We cannot see what jobs may await the newly unemployed. We can’t possibly see how we can end up on the other side of the unknown. But we know the right here and now. And it may be excruciatingly difficult and it might look like giving up is the only alternative but I implore you to hang on. Give it your might and give Him a nod if you can’t seem to right the boat in the tossing waters. It might take a herculean effort to rise and meet the day or maybe just a prayer. But it is here for the taking and it is ours to capture. Today.
Endurance will happen whether or not you’re in support of the ride. You can embrace it or fight it. Just like when you were little, your dad said, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way, but it’s gonna get done either way”. We will overcome this just as He has overcome the world.
Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”.
Peacefully,
Elaine
