The Joys of Sticking it Out

It's that time of year for Christmas plays and recitals. After months and weeks of practice the girls braved the stage for a Christmas play which they both performed in and Love debuted a new piece that she's been working on with the violin.

What I love most about seeing the girls up on the stage is reflecting back on how they've perservered. Perseverance is a character quality that is challenging to teach. The girls can read the definition of the word, they can read stories of characters that have remained committed to complete a difficult task, and I can lecture them with great compassion on what it means to perservere when the going gets tough. I can even share personal stories of how I have tried and failed at times to persevere as a child and as a adult. While all these methods may get the point across to a certain degree, there's a chance that their understanding on what it takes to perservere may end up just being head knowledge.

Perseverance is one of those character traits you just have to live and then learn.

When the excitement of performing Christmas songs wore off a few months ago and by the time Love had struggled through her violin piece for what seemed like the 53rd time and she was at the point where she would've rather get a root canal than pull out her violin to practice, the meaning of what it meant to persevere became real to them. They began to learn what it means to persist, to press on, and go the extra mile even though their fleshed yearned to do something else rather than practice. When you're working towards a goal, quitting can be a little tempting.

You know the feeling that you get when you're committed to exercising and you find the courage to climb on the treading mill and as you're walking or running hard your flesh screams out to you, "stop now, your flesh hurts, please stop now!". You know that exercise is good for you, but there's a part of you that always gets in the way of going the extra mile. It's hard to teach a young mind that in the face of adversity and difficulties, perseverance brings us to a place of rich blessings. As a parent we may want to rescue our kids when they're frustrated and take away their discomforts, but there is fruit even for a child to gain as they struggle a little and in the end see the blessings that come when they persevere.