No Shrinking

“Problems can slow us down temporarily
but they don’t have the ability to stop us.
Only we have that power.”

~Wayne Cordeiro~

She was drug by a horse as a 20-year-old, causing her to nurse a bad hip most of her life, only to have it replaced over fifty years later. She told stories of sitting up all night with her young asthmatic son, before the days of breathing treatments and steroids, just praying he'd keep breathing. She spent many days caring for her dying husband and had a leg amputated in her eighties. Yet she kept plugging away, making the most of life, enjoying her family and baking for them in the early hours of the morning, on one leg, no less.

When I asked her how she did it, how she got through so many tough times, she gave me a confused look, shrugged her shoulders and said, "What else are you going to do?"

Smart woman. The alternative to pressing on is to stop, to quit and do what? Wallow in misery? Waste away in bed? Hide your light?

When life gets hard, I want to escape. I daydream about lying on warm, sandy beaches or being snowed in at a cozy mountain cabin, with plenty of time to sleep and read and enjoy my husband. But running away doesn't remove the problems. Fantasizing only intensifies the longing to be removed from trouble.

God's call to endure is really a gift, making us move past the pain and on to better things. Though it feels like drudgery sometimes, it is His grace, forcing us to look beyond what is before us, telling us to seek the divine, the impossible, the beautiful. When we are able to do so, we build hope. And wonder. And purpose.

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

Hebrews 10:36-39

Hope comes from believing, knowing God will get you through, understanding in any moment He has the power to change you or the situation, trusting He knows what is best, believing a miracle could be just around the corner. Do you see the beauty in that? Do you see the childlike faith and wonder? Don't you want it? Don't you want to be wowed? Don't you crave the magic of God's hand? Don't you want to live life with a sparkle in your eye and a gasp at the ready when God shows Himself?

I will not shrink back and be destroyed. I will press on, believing the impossible. I will trudge through the problems, allowing myself a brief rest if necessary, but going forward in the end, knowing God will make all things beautiful in His time.

"What else are you going to do?"

Will you shrink back and be destroyed? Or will you press on and believe, with HOPE?


To read more impressions of this quote, visit Karen at In Love W.I.T.H. Jesus.