Happy Holidays beautiful St. Alban’s family! My hope and prayer is that all of you have the most wonderful Christmas filled with family, friends, fun, and fellowship! This season can be bright and joyous, but for others can be hard to navigate. So, I felt it was apt that I write about the ability to persevere, which I have learned to do often in the last year, and discovered is mentioned multiple times throughout the Bible. In beginning to plan this article, just looking at the word persevere I noticed that it can be broken into the prefix “per”, meaning by means of, and the root word “severe”, meaning strict or harsh. According to Oxford Languages, the definition of persevere is “continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty or with little or no prospect of success.” So, it does make sense that the actual word means exactly as it is written, or to get through by means of enduring something strict or harsh. We can endure and we will persevere!
In its simplest form in the Bible, James 1:12 says “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial”. We have been through many things as a parish family in the last several years including Covid, transition back to a semblance of a normal life, learning that we might need a plan Z, construction, losing some close to us and the list goes on. How do we persevere? We are faced with tough challenges all around us, cancer, disease, death, health challenges, and yet where do we find strength to persevere? In a word, Faith!
In Hebrews 10:36: "You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised". Things will happen that don’t make sense, that make us question and we must persevere. God has a plan, and it may not always make sense to us, but we must have the faith to move forward. In Romans 5:3-4: "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope". This is a tough one and one I work hard to instill in my children every day! To rejoice in our suffering? It is so hard to see through the hard times sometimes, but reliance on our ever-enduring faith has the power to pull us through. I don’t know why, but I must believe there is a purpose, a grand plan, if you will. This allows us the freedom to persevere and follow the unexpected path. This is never said more clearly than in Revelation 2:7: "Those who persevere in the faith will inherit eternal life".
This Christmas let us remember the perseverance of Mary and Joseph to endure the unknown of pregnancy and a great journey and by doing so gave us the most precious gift of God’s only son, Jesus Christ. My prayer is that we all persevere in faith despite our sufferings and give thanks for God’s love, those around us, and in the joy that is Christmas and its true meaning. Wishing all of you the merriest of Christmases!
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