Perseverance: When Faith Keeps Going
My last blog I wrote about Job. This week, I watched perseverance, faith, and hope unfold within my own family through my brother’s unwavering love for his daughter.
I just returned from visiting my 21-year-old autistic niece, who is about to begin her senior year of college. Since March she has been battling serious digestive issues that have caused her to lose more than 30 pounds.
Watching someone you love suffer is heartbreaking. Watching my brother’s dedication, care and deep love in the most painful circumstances brought me to tears and gave me a whole new appreciation for him as a person, a father, a man who is a living demonstration of perseverance.
He has spent months researching, meeting with doctors, sitting through emergency room visits, advocating for his daughter, and trying to find answers. At the same time, he’s been dealing with major damage to his home from a winter storm and the many frustrations of contractors and insurance. It seems that every time one problem begins to settle, another appears.
Yet through it all, he has not given up on his daughter, finding answers, or on God.
Like Job, he still asks, “Why?” and “Please help my daughter.” But he has never stopped praying or trusting God. His perseverance is in getting up every morning, making one more phone call, asking one more question, believing that somehow God is still present.
Watching my brother, I saw Romans 5:3–4 lived out before my eyes:
“Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
He has championed Leah since the day she was born. He taught her to sail, cook, skate, and play music. He believed in her ability to attend college before others did. Today, as she faces one of the hardest times of her life, he continues to stand beside her with the same steadfast love.
“Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
Sometimes God doesn’t remove the trial immediately. Instead, God gives us the strength to endure it—and often places people in our lives who become living reminders of hope.
My brother has become one of those reminders for me.
Whatever burden you are carrying today, don’t give up. Keep trusting. Keep praying. Keep taking the next faithful step. God is still at work, even when we cannot yet see the road clearly before us.
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Desmond Tutu
My brother found that light in unwavering faith, perseverance, and in refusing to let go of God.
May we all have the courage to keep walking toward that light.
