That picture is even uglier than Sticky Piggy, but since I'm fresh out of the athletic version of myself running a stretch of miles in the rising sun, my modem will have to do for my picture of gratefulness. I'm not proclaiming gratefulness for the internet (although it does make my life much easier in ways) but rather what that little contraption represents in my word of the day, "endurance." There have been many things in my life that have brought me back to the call for endurance this week. We have been counting down "sleeps" and trying to maintain peace and kind words in our little home until father returns. I'm supposed to be having endurance to eat right and exercise. Every day has been a battle of endurance for poor Jack in that dreaded subject of math. And alas, I had to make a call to AT&T yesterday when we woke to find our world without internet...shudder. I apparently offended the technology overlords with my ever-so-slight mention of "No Technology Tuesday" on Monday so they zapped us upon waking Tuesday morning. I quickly realized just how much I use that little modem (in all honesty I didn't even really know where it was or it's proper name....have no fear, we are now on a first name basis!) I am not one characterized by patience or independently working out issues that I feel belong to a man's world so the call to the mighty AT&T was quite an adventure for me. When the first question was to state the phone number of your account, I was already perplexed because technically we have four numbers under them, thus I knew I was not in for a smooth experience in the restoration of my DSL. And then the onslaught of questions began with an ever-so-calm technical voice asking me things that I had no idea about and me, at first attempting to be an AT&T star pupil with graceful and pleasant answers, to ten minutes later me, in the fetal position, yelling at the phone, "HUMAN, I just want to speak to a HUMAN PERSON!!!" My kind neighbor came over and attempted to help me in this endeavor and suggested I say "representative" so once the line was completely befuddled by my constant answer to any question with "REPRESENTATIVE!" I managed to find at least someone who had a human quality about them. At this point, all I could weakly murmur was "help, no internet" and the man began interpretation and was just about the utter the magical words that would restore my wifi and my sanity when lo-and-behold, the call was dropped. So other than confessing my fail in constant gratefulness, what on earth does this have to do with endurance? I was done. I quit. No internet. No calling AT&T ever again. We were going to make do by driving around town stealing other's wifi until Jay came home. Then my neighbor, who remained ever so much calmer than myself during this process, texted me today to consider calling them again to fix the problem. I thought she had lost her mind, but I took deep breathes and placed the call. I'm pretty sure they flagged me as "Answer call quickly, crazy woman, husband in Africa, fear for children's lives" because today the problem was solved quickly and efficiently. This is, of course, a rather cynical way of seeing the word picture of the importance of endurance in my life, but the sigh of relief when that little light blinked as it was supposed to was nothing compared to the rest, peace and beauty of enduring to the end by the constant pursuit of Christ. I am nearly complete with a study on Hebrews that I have been compiling for my sweet Bible study women. The verse I most recently wrote on was Hebrews 12:1-2, "Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witness, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." What an amazing example we have of a Holy Savior who endured the agonizing death on the cross for the glory of God and salvation of man! That Savior also calls me to a life of endurance and the amazing part of this story is that He also supplies the endurance for the race in which He has called me to run. What an encouragement to know that we run for our good and His glory in the safety of His loving hands!
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