Endurance

ENDURANCE God disciplines those He loves, His discipline yields righteousness. We are called to endure, but even more to rejoice in our struggles. When we are tired and weary we must / I must remember all Jesus endured for me. My trivial trials are nothing compared to what He endured. Endurance is the ability or strength to continue or last, especially despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions. Do I endure or do I get caught up in my earthly weakness? I am being honest here, I do get caught up too much at times in this world and my earthly struggles. So, please pray for strength and endurance for me. Many of you know I did a marathon (yes 26.2 miles) a few months ago and I know it sounds cliché but life really is like running that marathon. One foot in front of the other, trying to live and enjoy each and every moment. Despite the pain, the doubting voices in your head or naysayers around you. Really, it should all be only for Him anyway……… So, I go forward and struggle with this (please pray, life has been a little overwhelming lately). Again I cannot thank all of you enough for your prayers, they are making an impact. I went away a few weeks ago for a personal retreat and one of my friends dubbed this my “happiness”. The more I thought and prayed about this, he was correct. This was an opportunity for me to rest, reflect, rejuvenate and most importantly spend some quality time with God. Thank you Lord for this opportunity and I pray that each of you find your own “happiness” time with God, rest is critical to being able to endure our daily struggles. My happiness comes from my relationship with God, not anything worldly. I strive to remember that each moment of every day. As you prayer warriors know, I feel like I am supposed to go on a short term mission trip soon. Well, God has placed what sounds like a wonderful opportunity in my path and after prayer and counsel I have accepted (well actually I am sending the application and deposit as soon as I post this). If God allows I will be going to Honduras January 25, 2014 – February 1, 2014. Will be going with Jeff Andler Ministries (www.jeffandlerministries.org) and partnering with Open Eyes Ministries in Honduras (www.openeyes.org) to share God’s love, providing spiritual and medical care. So please pray for endurance and for this missions opportunity, may God use this team in a mighty way all for His glory. Open Eyes Ministries also offers a protégé program for those feeling called to full time missions work internationally (I love how God works, I have done research on the organization and looked at their website many times. As I am typing this I looked one more time to verify the web address and this was the first time I noted this protégé program). We will see, placing all this in God’s wonderful hands. God Bless, Alison