Lately, on social media I have seen that people are posting their word of the year for 2021. It has been wonderful to see the encouraging, uplifting words that people have chosen. The only word that comes to my mind is endurance.
I feel like that is much of my life right now. Enduring. Enduring until my kids are back in school full time, enduring until my husband is no longer teaching from my basement, me able to hear almost every word. Enduring until I can attend church again, to see friends and families regularly without weighing every decision. It has been a hard, tiring several months.
In just two months it will be a an entire year since the pandemic began officially in the US. Can you believe it? I cringe to think how few in-person school days my disabled son has received over these past several months. That has been hard.
Endurance. Enduring until the vaccine is widely distributed, until the daily rate numbers are way down and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
I am a few weeks into a Bible reading plan for the new year. I’m attempting to read the entire Bible through this year. I have done this a few times before, but it has been many years since I have done so. One thing I like about reading the whole Bible is reoccurring themes emerge. One theme is endurance. So many trials and difficulties for God’s people. SO MUCH WAITING.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
What has been, it is what will be, And what has been done, it is what will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.
We like to use phrases and words like: unprecedented, never before, for the first time, etc. In God’s word we learn “so there is nothing new under the sun”. It doesn’t mean that our circumstances aren’t hard, that they aren’t painful or troubling. But His word is full of examples of those that have waited, for those that have endured. I find comfort in knowing that I am not alone!
One of my favorite verses that also brings me peace is found in Hebrews 12:1–
Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us,
Let us press on!
