Spiritual Sundays: Enduring to the End

Editor’s Note: The Power of Moms is a website for mothers of all religious preferences. Our Spiritual Sundays section is a place where our authors can write about thoughts that are more spiritual in nature, and our goal is to gather a wide variety of perspectives.  If you (or someone you know) has something to add to this section to help us reach a wider audience of mothers, please send in your submission.        

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An oft-repeated theme in pretty much every religion is “enduring to the end.”  We’re supposed to plow on through the hardships that life throws our way, clinging to principles of truth and light and trusting that the Lord (or whatever higher power we accept) will help see us through.  Most of us believe that on the other side of sorrow and strife, there is usually growth and often some rest.

I just gained some new perspectives on this topic from a great article by an old friend of mine, Emma Petty Addams.  The title of the article is “Enduring Well.”  Emma talks about a period in her life where she experienced two excrutiatingly hard pregnancies, her father’s untimely death, the onset of migraine headaches, a challenging cross-country move and her son’s diagnosis with autism.  She explained that while she went through these things, she thought “This can’t be real life – I just need to hold on and this will pass.”  But she quickly realized that while some things do pass, other things don’t.  Autism isn’t something you can just work through and get past.  It doesn’t usually go away.  Sadness at loosing a parent doesn’t go away.  Migraine headaches, while they can be managed, often keep coming back.  What was the “end” she was enduring towards?

Emma realized that enduring wasn’t about simply struggling through until the end.  She gained a whole new understanding of endurance.  “In my former understanding of endurance, happiness came at the end, AFTER the hard part is over. But I’ve learned that you can be happy WHILE enduring.” 

Emma goes on to explain that through her family’s trials, “we feel greater empathy for others’ struggles…and find ourselves reaching for a greater understanding…” Most of us have had or will have times in our life when we are slammed with one challenge after another.  We cannot control all the challenges that will come our way.  But we can control our attitude towards our challenges.

Through faith that there is a higher power pulling for us as well as trust that the experiences we have are offering us important chances for growth, we can not only endure, but endure WELL. We can accept the challenges in our life, do some “Pollyanna” stuff where possible (figure out a silver lining), and learn to be happy even in the midst of ongoing trials.  It’s NOT easy.  But it is possible.  

I’ll end with a quote by one of my heroes, Joseph B. Wirthlin:  “I [don’t think] we should suppress discouragement or deny the reality of pain…beneath a cloak of pretended happiness.  But I do believe that the way we react to adversity can be a major factor in how happy and successful we can be in life…If we approach adversities wisely, our hardest times can be times of greatest growth, which in turn can lead toward times of greatest happiness.”  

Click here to read Emma’s full article.

QUESTION:  Have you found some positive ways to endure challenges well?  What are they?  We can all use more ideas!

CHALLENGE:  Find ways to endure well and smiling in the face of adversity.

About Saren Eyre Loosli

Saren adores her five energetic, adventurous, precocious children but doesn't totally adore the mess and busyness and bickering that that comes with them! She grew up all over the world, got her Bachelor's degree at Wellesley College and did her Masters in Education at Harvard University (these days, the diplomas on her wall mostly serve as visual aids when she's trying to convince her all-too-smart teenagers that she DOES know a thing or two!). She went on to design and implement enrichment programs for kids and training programs for teachers. But it was only after she finally found her Mr. Right, Jared, and had five children in five years, that her education and work experience began in earnest!

When she's not trying to answer five - or six - different needs and questions at once, she works on this website (she's Co-Director and Co-Founder of Power of Moms).

She currently lives in Ogden, Utah and loves reading, hiking, and biking with her family (or by herself when possible!). She often struggles with balance but finds joy in being involved in many things that are meaningful to her.