Post Number Forty-Two

Persistence

Terry is away at a conference on Christian camping in the United Methodist Church.  I hope that it is a time away filled with purposeful activity that draws her spirit away from her illness.  This past weekend was difficult.  Neither she nor I could shake the specter of her illness.  Mary came home to give us a hand in this exercise in coping.  Mary was a great help, but the specter remained.

I have been thinking about the lake freighters that ply the Great Lakes and pass Port Huron on the St. Clair River.  Up until the end of January these ships push on with their work despite the growing presence of ice and the resistance it imposes.  They have a mission and a purpose and they will keep at it until conditions force them to lay up for about a month or six weeks.  Until then they persist and they push against the opposing ice.  

From time to time they need some help.  That is when one of the Coast Guard ice breakers is called upon. They may be stuck for a time, but they always break free to continue with their mission.  They never stop until the opposing ice is just too thick to conquer.

Persistence is the word for this moment in our struggle.  Pushing on against the growing opposition and asking for help when it is needed.  There is also a patience required in this moment.  Spring will yet come.  The ice will disappear for a time and we may yet enjoy a time of easy journey.

Dave Gladstone