persevere

Greater Than Gold

| Marie Griffith

Have you ever received a gift you didn’t like? Or maybe you hated it? Maybe you even returned it, exchanged it or re-gifted it. I know I have.

God is the Ultimate Gift Giver. Unfortunately, we don’t recognize the good gifts and a lot of times, we take them for granted. Some of them don’t feel like gifts at all.

Because some of God’s greatest gifts are disguised as trials.

James tells us to “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.     James 1:2-4 (NIV)

The Message Bible puts it this way: “consider it a sheer gift.”

And Peter had this to say:

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  I Peter 1:6-7 (NIV)

James and Peter agree that faith under pressure is for our good. The pain has a purpose. Trials make our faith deeper, purer, and stronger. Did you catch what Peter says of our faith? It’s worth more than gold, and like the fire refines the gold to make it pure, trials refine our faith. With a stronger and deeper faith we praise God and touch more people with His love. But we have to “let perseverance finish its work.”

When the trial seems never ending…

When the pain feels like it will swallow you…

When you can’t see how it will ever be better…

Don’t lose heart. Persevere. Stick with God and move forward. Some days that will be as basic as breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. Believe God’s promises even when you don’t feel full of faith. See it through my weary friend, see it through. God is faithful and He will never leave you.

This is a rewrite of a post I wrote five years ago. I wrote the original, The Gift, during one of the most painful seasons of my life. The pain was so cruel and deep I could hardly see beyond it.

But here I am……changed forever.

I’ve endured painful seasons since then and am living through trials now with a deeper faith. A stronger more pure faith. As He was then, God is holding me close and giving me the strength and courage to move forward. He’s revealing hidden places in my heart, healing me and always changing me. God is doing His work so that I will be mature and complete and I’m praising Him through it.

Thank you, Abba Father.
Thank you for the gifts that I would have never chosen.
Thank you for your relentless love.
Thank you.

 

The faith of good people is tried, that they themselves may have the comfort of it, God the glory of it, and others the benefit of it.        Matthew Henry

 

This is a Monday School post. For more info about Monday School, click here.

 

Photo by Nynne Schrøder on Unsplash

 

Hope Has Feet

| Marie Griffith

Last week I wrote about making headway. Sometimes the headway is painful. Sometimes it’s slow and feels like no headway at all. I used my running journey as an example because lately my running is terrible. My body hurts. I can’t get my breathing right. And my pace is off. Since then I’ve had two fantastic runs!

I came close to talking myself right out of the first one. It was freezing outside when I woke up before the sun. I dreaded the run already and had more time to dread it while my windshield defrosted. I struggled to be positive on my drive to the park, but I ran my goal and it felt great. And I had another good run today. Maybe I have my running groove back.

I do know this: If I hope to be a runner, I have to run. Or sometimes barely jog. Or maybe I alternate walking and running. But I keep at it. I do the work of running. So what if I go through a season of painful off-paced running? I still do it.

It’s that way with anything we hope for.

If we hope to publish a book one day, we make the time to write. We hope to go to grad school, then we find out what it will take and do it. We want to travel, then we do the work of saving and planning. We hope for a good marriage, then we learn to love our spouses the way we want to be loved, and do the hard thing of loving when it’s not easy. We hope for deep friendships, then let’s be the kind of friends that make it possible. Anything we hope for must be worked for.

Hope doesn’t wait around for something to happen. Hope is not an idle wish for things to get better. Hope has feet. Hope compels us to move forward. Toward our goals and dreams, and the people in our lives. Hope moves us patiently and steadily in the direction of all the good things, all the God things our hearts desire.

Even a long season of waiting can be a hopeful and purposeful time of growth. But hope always looks and moves forward.

What is it you hope for? How are you moving toward it? Have you ever lost hope?

Thank you, Joanna Schley, for the sweet photo.

More Than Meets the Eye

| Marie Griffith

Today’s Monday School is short and sweet and really good.

So we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV

There’s a reason this is one of my favorite verses.

When I’m tempted to focus on what’s happening around me. Or when I get discouraged or overwhelmed or just plain tired. When the pain hurts too much. When I have no answers. No way to fix it and nothing else to give.

When I think I might lose heart…..

I don’t.

Because I’m being renewed day by day.

I’m renewed every day because I look at what I can’t see. My heart is strengthened and my courage renewed when my eyes are fixed on what lasts forever.

So I don’t give up. I press on. I love the people God gave me and I do the good I know to do. And I ask God to help me. There’s not a day that goes by without His boundless grace.

Therefore, I don’t lose heart.

 

There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.   2 Corinthians 4:18 MSG

 
Invisible

They Won

| Marie Griffith

This is the kind of story that never gets old.

Daddy knew he needed to make a change.

To get better.

To save his life and ours.

He moved all of us to a whole new life in another state. Far away from the drinking binges and the fighting and the rehab centers that didn’t work. Far away from what happened and what was……..to something good and better.

The convoy to our fresh start rolled out one early summer morning in 1982. As a preteen I was probably less annoyed than most kids my age would have been. I knew I’d miss my friends but I was ready for something better. The hope of a calmer life, a different house, and a new school filled my heart. Moving day was a good day.

My sisters and I weren’t the only ones at a new school. Part of Dad’s new life included seminary and he began the night courses eagerly. He took careful notes in class and squeezed study time in when he could.

I can’t remember the day or the month or the season, but before the end of the first year Dad started drinking again.

Mom was devastated. She never told me that, but I know. Dad was too. When you’re a kid you have no idea what your parents are going through. Then you grow up and endure your own heartaches and one day, without meaning to, you feel the pain of your mom’s fear or the torment of your dad’s struggle with alcohol.

For the next decade Daddy lost the battle with alcohol over and over and over again.

Ten years.

Ten more years of the chaos and violence. Ten more years of tears and sorrow. Regretting the move, resenting the losses. Ten more years of emergency room visits and halfway houses. Ten more years of job changes and the financial strain and moving from house to house.

I’m sure Daddy remembered the day he took his last drink. He may have counted the days but he never told us. After about a year of him not drinking……we realized he wasn’t drinking. Then it was two years, then five. Ten years sober, then 20 years.

Daddy was sober for almost 23 years when he passed away in 2014.

Twenty three years of healing and restored relationships. Twenty three years of good memories. Twenty three years of the sweetest grace.

They won. Daddy and Mom pressed through and marched on. They fought the good fight and fought with each other. They messed up but moved forward. There were days they wanted to but they didn’t give up.

The long view is what got them through. The good days helped them see beyond the bad ones. When everything was falling apart they believed it could all come together. Love does that. It sees longer and deeper and wider. So my parents kept going. One day at a time. And they won.

The last time Daddy and Mom were face to face and held each others’ hands they weren’t thinking of the hard years. They were thankful for the moment and all the years that got them there.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.

Restart

A Good Path

| Marie Griffith

A good path in the early morning is just right for my better runs. Optimum conditions for my best runs are high energy levels, a crisp 42 degrees with sunshine, and a lengthy path.

Most days I will have one or the other. One day the weather will be perfect but my feet feel like bricks. The next run day I feel spry but the weather is warmer than I like. The path is generally the same at my local park.  I take a 2 mile loop a couple of times for a good run. But occasionally I get to run in a different place on a brand new path. Like when we were in Boulder last October and I explored part of the town on the various running trails. Or when I run with a friend and she takes me on a new trail.

I ran a new path this weekend. My goal was 6.2 miles. The conditions were not in my favor. It was a balmy 67 degrees and my energy was low. But I needed this run and I wanted to explore the beauty of the state park we were in. I just wasn’t sure where to start, or which way to go……

So I started running. Almost a mile in I realized the path I was on ended. I turned around, running at a good pace, enjoying my surroundings and saw a trail marker for a hiking trail through the woods. We’d hiked parts of the trail the day before and I remembered there were other trails off that one I wanted to explore. I knew this would slow my pace but I couldn’t resist the urge to be in the woods. The trail was familiar at first but then I realized I wasn’t where I thought I’d be. I finally ran into an open path near the road. My 6.3 mile run took me over hills, near the water, through the shaded woods, into the bright sunlight, beside a golf course and around the park swimming area.

The run was hard.

And it was glorious.

The tough parts were worth the beautiful parts.

“Now you’ve got my feet on the life path,
all radiant from the shining of your face.
Ever since you took my hand,
I’m on the right way.”                        Psalm 16:11  MSG

Still Running

| Marie Griffith

I ran in the Worldwide WordPress 5K yesterday. I wish I could say it was a great run.

But it wasn’t. I planned to run 5 1/2 miles but I cut the run short because I felt terrible. My legs hurt. I couldn’t get my breathing right. And my arms even hurt at one point. It was my worst feeling run to date. But I got the 3.1 miles in.

fullsizerender-7Since last year a lot of good things have happened with my running. I run regularly and longer distances and at a faster pace. I ran an 8K in May. I finished a Spartan Race in August and I will run my first 10K in October.

Most importantly I will run tomorrow and I will run my planned 5 1/2 miles. Even if hurts.

Because I want to get better at this.

 

 

 

 

See it Through

| Marie Griffith

In the mid 90s I watched my dad learn a total new way of doing his work. The company he worked for did what most companies did at that time and upgraded the way of doing things to computers and software and transmitting data through the Internet. He’d always used his mechanical pencils, triangular ruler, other items I never knew the names of and his calculator to get the numbers. And he was good at it too. Dad was just fine with his old school ways of estimating.  img_4352

But the bulky computer came anyway. It sat on a hand-built shelf atop Dad’s drafting table. He built the shelf after he accepted the new way.

But it took a while. A long while.

This computer stuff and the email and the downloading files and working out the glitches frustrated my dad. A lot. He thought he was too old to learn the new ways. He thought about quitting. He wanted to give up.

But he didn’t. He stuck with it even when he couldn’t see how it would ever work. And he had that job until the day he died. That job enabled him to work from his home office for years while he cared for Mom. The frustrating technology and new way of doing things that Dad resisted so much at first was the exact blessing he needed later.

Dad stayed the course. He persevered. He stuck it out.

My parents were “see it through” kind of people.

My dad beat his addiction to alcohol. That doesn’t happen if you give up.

Mom stayed with Dad through a lot of painful years of marriage. Fifty-one years don’t happen unless you see it through.

Thank God I have some of that grit too.

Have you hit hard times? Don’t know how you’re going to make it through another day?

Want to give up, give in or quit the whole thing?

See it through my weary friend!  See it through!

“But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”      Hebrews 10:39  NIV