Well Hello Friend!
Happy New Year to you and your household!
At the beginning of each Gregorian calendar year, I prayerfully choose a word which has the qualities I’m striving to attain. This year that word is “Tenacity”. What is it about that word that appeals to me? Well…. quite honestly… nothing— in the flesh. LOL. The word actually sounds like struggle and hard work at this moment in my life. But maturity is recognizing that you might need to work on something— even if it isn’t a fluffy, feel-good experience. And I’m trying to be mature enough to choose what I know I need more of. Hence: Tenacity. 🙂
You see, it’s easy to move forward towards your mission when the path is obvious and the road is clear. When your social media posts get thousands of “likes” and “shares” and you have an audience of eager cheerleaders singing your praises. Those kinds of things encourage a person, right? Ah— but motivating yourself to get up and do the hard things can be much more challenging if you have developed a pattern of tying external validation to the value of your mission.
We need to ask ourselves: Do we really want to be vulnerable to the whims of human emotion and AI algorithms? Should our world come crashing down if our husband, friends, family or social media pages aren’t ecstatic with praise for our contributions? What happens when we wake up one morning and the likes and praise are simply not there?
How do you persevere then? Where does the energy, the strength, the courage come from when our external validation dries up and withers away? That’s an important question because we are all going to experience seasons in our life when our outside support systems fail us! Family crisis occur. Friends move away. People get distracted by their own personal issues. Relationship statuses change. How do we keep moving forward when we find ourselves in a dry season, with few external sources of validation and encouragement?
Well my friend, it comes from Tenacity.
Tenacity is the determination to press forward— even without likes or shares or words of affirmation. It is pushing forward, fueled by the KNOWING that you were created for this purpose and as long as you keep at it, you WILL attain success. It is the conviction that our purpose in this life time will eventually be fulfilled! Not necessarily because humanity has embraced and rewarded us, but because we were faithful to the calling placed upon our lives!
Such a drive can not be thwarted by lack of cheerleading because its source never came from there to begin with! It is based instead on the unshakeable confidence that the Creator Himself called us forth from the darkness and placed a mission in our spirit. It allows us to move forward with courage— understanding that the World’s opinion of our efforts is meaningless. They can not deem us a failure OR a success— because the mission didn’t originate from them.
And that is the kind of stamina I am after this year! I am yearning for something deeper than I currently have! I don’t want to be distracted by my sales reports on Amazon or by the numbers of followers I have on social media. I don’t want to feel like I’m going to shrivel up and die if my husband doesn’t notice what I’ve done around the house today. I don’t want to spiral into depression because my social network doesn’t always agree with my opinions. Those things aren’t ‘bad” to have but they are not true indications of the spiritual impact of my life, and they aren’t indications of your impact, either!
If the Creator of the Universe has tapped us on the shoulder and invited us to rise up and accomplish a task— is it not clear that He would instill everything we need to accomplish it? When we give in to fear and doubt, it really isn’t us we are questioning. The hard, cold truth is— it shows our distrust in our Creator. We doubt because we can’t fathom that He would choose to use us-— piddly, imperfect, frail humans with our messy little lives. But Dear One, that’s exactly WHY He chooses us! And if we place our focus on just staying the course and being faithful with what He has given us to do, we will eventually make it to the finish line—successful in every way that counts!
That’s why I’ve chosen Tenacity as my word for 2025. I’m a long way from attaining it, but it’s an inspiring goal. What word inspires you to do better this year? Please feel free to comment here— or find me on line. I’d love to hear from you.
Until Next Time,
Today as I was having my morning coffee and watching the squirrels rob my bird feeders, I was startled by a loud “Thud” at my sliding glass doors. I looked out the door and was grieved to see this beautiful young cardinal flopping around on the patio below.