Perseverance

January 13, 2018

More often than not, when I sit down to write my “Thankful Blog,” as someone called it, my mind is a blank, not because there is nothing for which to give thanks, but because most of it is so ordinary and personal that I can’t imagine anyone else being interested in it. Facebook is filled with pictures of people enamored with their cats and their children, which I’m sure are as important to them as my children and grandchildren are to me. But I would be fooling myself to imagine that my kids and grandkids matter as much to anyone else as they do to me. So while I am grateful for them, and for many other people, events, and things in my life, most of it is ho-hum to anyone else. So I sit and stare at a blank page.

But there is something of value in sitting and staring, and refusing to simply give up. We are often faced with situations for which there seems no solution, no way out. If we walk by every closed door without even bothering to knock, we’ll never know which ones might yield and open to unimagined delights. If we simply bow before every obstacle, we’ll never learn what strength we actually have. If we sit and stare long enough, often a dim form will start to take shape in the mists before our eyes, and we begin to discern patterns to which we had been blind before. 

So I sit and stare, and eventually begin to write. Only a small portion of it has any value, perhaps even less than I imagine, but the discipline is worth it. The blank page has not defeated me. I have ink and paper to prove it. And even if what I write turns out to be trivial, the effort is not, because as I shape words and sentences, they also shape me. And when all is done for the glory of God, it is good, and I give thanks.