Life is about endurance and how you endure......

This morning I read a heart felt email posted by someone that I have never meant, well not physically, but have great respect for.  She is the VAC for BBFC.  She is a kind loving person from all accounts and from the limited perspective I have seen of her.  She is a loving mother, an upcycler ( I like that in a person), a mother and a mother again much like myself.  She has a big job taking care of all of us at BBFC, she hears our wants does the best she can to give us our wants and has to endure our whining when all of her "children" can't have what they want all at the same time.  She is a hero for BBFC and we are the better for having her. 

Her email made me contemplative, that and that in Bible study this morning we are reading James chapter 1, both spoke of enduring.  What do we endure in this life?  We start by endure our families as a whole, our siblings specifically.  We learn who we are from them, we mold our personalities with them.  We learn to love, hate, fight, bicker, gossip, our compassion, our role in society and hopefully our belief in God.  They prepare us for the world as a whole and can, and should, be a sanctuary from the world when needed.  We also endure our families.  We develop our endurance from our friends, acquaintances and casual encounters in our lives. 

Do we prize endurance in our lives in this day and age?  We live in a I wanted it yesterday world so is endurance honored or prized?  Do we really teach or even try to teach our children endurance?  I think for the most part less and less than at one time.  Do we teach our children to be slow to anger?  Do we teach them to be less about what I want and more about what you can do for others?  Do we as adults still have a 2 year olds need to be the Me in our worlds?  Do we put ourselves above the needs or our families, friends, children, spouses and God?  Does being right outweigh the compromise that comes from working out a problem together?  Do we expect others to endure our rights and wants with no consideration for the input of their wants and needs?  Do we even know how to stop being "me first"?  Can we stop for one moment in this fast paced day and age and say "what can I do to make some one else's life less hectic?  Do I really have to have it my way each and every time?  Could I endure letting some one else lead me, can I wait for gratification, can I step back and comply to the needs of some one else?  Does my needs out weigh those of my friends, family, or spouse.  Is there room in my life to say what can I do to make others lives better? can I give of myself quietly with out having to blow in like a hurricane and fix it? is enduring compassion something I have in me?  Is being humble and allowing others to blossom something I can give?  Can my child's life be something they lead and not something I control?  Is my will always more important than the will of those around me?" No, my will, my life, my needs, my anything is not more important that anyone else's, each and everyone of us have the same needs, the same wants and the same basic desires, to live our life the best we can and endure.  We want to survive this life.  Alone we struggle and our endurance wanes.  We need others, we need their acceptance, we need so many things that we can not endure with out,  but to endure we make so many mistakes to the goal of enduring. 

I have heard so many people disdain enduring, they see it as drudgery and as a negative.  They endure their lives as if it were a punishment when they should embrace the ability to endure.  Patience is one of the best things we can aspire to have in this life.  Patience and endurance, the patience to endure, are blessings and goals to work to.  I know that I have worked my whole life just trying to embrace patience and endurance, they both will hold us in good standing in our golden years.  

Here's to the heroic efforts and endurance of our beloved VAC, your endurance blesses BBFC, blesses all the peoples that get to have the coop in their communities due to your tireless work, and blesses the lives of those you touch.  Thank you for your efforts and example...tomorrow.