While writing up a blog entry, I couldn’t figure out why my post was not coming together and it was troubling me…until I stepped away to take a much needed break. In part, it made sense since writing is not my forte, however, it is something I do on a regular basis and many days I do fine, but today was extremely challenging and a struggle for me.
It was a tender mercy that immediately as I set it aside and moved away from it, one of my children came to me with the exact same question I was stewing over, “Why Am I Struggling So?” only from the flip side. I was intrigued and delighted.
For them, it was with basketball. On this particular day, they were very pleased with their basketball accomplishments, yet, they brought up how interesting it is that on some days they do well and on other days they don’t do so well. I was curious…what makes the difference? Such as, a bad hair day versus a good hair day, a bad writing day versus a good writing day, a bad workout day versus a good workout day and on and on…
Per our conversation, these various thoughts came to mind.
1. What I was writing was a significant post that had potential to bless the lives of many, and as such, the adversary was working full force to prevent and thwart my efforts from it getting posted.
2. Einstein had many a bad days, but he didn’t give up and kept going and great things came from his perseverance.
3. How often do we tackle a project like a renovation and think it’ll be easy, but once we get into it, we find issues—rusted out pipes, mold, termites… etc. Although the repairs and fixing it up is tedious and frustrating, the effort extended results in an amazing finished product.
4. Perhaps, it opens the door for other good things to happen redirecting and focusing our energy, for the time-being, elsewhere. For instance, in basketball, rather than practicing 3 point shots that, for whatever reason, are not sinking like usual, improving upon lay ups instead. With writing, maybe setting it aside and engage in a completely different activity and area of interest for an essential breather to clear one’s mind. Or, with bad hair days, trying a different hairstyle that may result in discovering an amazing new style that only came to be because of a bad hair day.
5. In addition, another family member shared a reminder that there is opposition in all things.
As I reflected on each of these points, I had an enlightened perspective when I returned later to my writing. Even though it took longer than most to write up the specific blog post, I did not give up and eventually it came together.
In a nutshell, my takeaway was that things of great importance and worthwhile may require more painstaking effort and to not give up when something isn’t working out in the moment(s); and, that struggles and “bumps in the road” do not necessarily mean stop doing what valuable thing you are doing, particularly, when it doesn’t feel right to do so, and “throw in the towel”, but rather step away to do something else for a time and then come back and try again.
When have you been at a point of contemplating giving up on something beneficial you were working really hard on that wasn’t coming together and a conversation with another, right at that time, inspired you to keep going and pressing forward?
tendermercym❤️ments~jld
“How have you noticed Heavenly Father’s awareness and mindfulness of you today?”
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