This post is written to link with #Five Minute Friday: write for five minutes on a one-word prompt. The prompt today is “ENDURE”.
To endure = to bear without resistance or with patience.
And there my dear friends is my problem! I don’t seem to be able to bear with patience or without resistance! My first instinct at the first sign of trouble, pain or suffering is always resistance! I don’t want this trouble in my life, I want it out, finished with, never to return. I don’t want to endure hardship, I would much rather have an easy life, so I don’t endure with patience, I fret, I worry, I am cranky, I berate God with ‘why me’!
I have yet to learn grace to endure with patience, grace to bear without resistance.
Despite the fact God has taught me again and again about acceptance and surrender, it doesn’t seem to come easy for me; there is always an initial resistance.
I envy those who seem to bear with great patience the many sorrows of life, those who seem to accept both the good and bad things that come with the same grace and equanimity.
I long to grow in that grace, grace which endures, grace to rejoice in the enduring, grace to accept, grace to surrender without the struggle, without the resistance,
“Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” (Job 2:10)
Finding God in the Everyday 
Thank you Fiona for your honesty and authenticity – a different angle on endure to my own, but so interesting to read our different reflections. 🙂
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Fiona, it is so true – we don’t want to endure. We want to get it done and over with. Yes, in these days we are in, may God give us grace to endure. It’s funny but since I wrote my own post, I have been humming the old hymn, “But Until Then”. I pray that I am able to endure and “And until then my heart will go on singing,
Until then with joy I’ll carry on,
Until the day my eyes behold the city,
Until the day God calls me home.”
Blessings!
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I don’t know that old hymn! I’ll look it up! Xx
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Thank you for sharing the feelings deep inside all of us when we go through suffering, trials and sorrows. Great post!
Terri D
#6 FMF
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Thanks Terri! X
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You’re welcome
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oh so good! unfortunately I can relate all too well at the failure to endure well. It was even what I wrote on as well, today. oh to endure in trials as He did! much grace and peace to you!
mariel
fmf#9
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Blessings. Xx
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The Grace to endure — now, there lies the lesson! #7
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“Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha,”
so the dying monk had said
as the tumours, ever-ruder
confined him to his futon bed.
There was manly courage there,
lifted veil that I might see
a stout heart worn by pain and care,
and graced in equanimity.
When I held water to his lips
kind eyes thanked me with resolve
and they bade me come to grips
with mystery that I must solve,
that if by cancer I was blessed
could I pass this final test?
It seems that for me, the equanimity test is here at last.
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Thanks Andrew, appropriate as always! Blessings. Xx
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You and me, both! What has taking it easy for the last few months gotten me? I’m flabby and weak. The same occurs in my spirit. The hard times (the times that require endurance) give us strength. It’s not easy, but it’s part of the journey.
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I don’t think any if us endure patiently. I’m sure if they was a Christian survey on the fruit of the spirit we would all have patience pretty low. Xxx
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Thanks. Loretta! Xx
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Fiona, we share many of the same feelings. I cringe at my reactions to challenging situations, resistance being one of them. One day we will be surprised by the grace God displays in us at just the right time someone else needs to receive it. Thanks for being vulnerable.
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Thanks Suzette. Grace & blessings to you. Xx
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