What’s the first word that comes to your mind when you see the picture above? The word I first think of is perseverance. I can hardly imagine the sacrifice the brave young man must have gone through for our country, and the courage, determination, and perseverance that it takes for him to get through each day.
This is the type of perseverance that I want for my children. I want them to know that life will be full of things that they have never excepted and it will take reaching to the depths of their being to search for the strength to make it through. This type of character is not something that were born with, but rather, it’s something that is learned through the hard and somewhat tough lessons of life.
In our family, we always say,”You need to finish what you start. “Stopping something because you are tired of it, or because you don’t like it, doesn’t go over to well in our household. We remind our children that they made a commitment to something and it needs to be carried out until it’s done, because other people are depending on them.
It would be so much simpler to take the easy way out after hearing their pleadings numerous times. It may help us as parents to relieve the stress we feel at the moment, but it won’t help our children in the long run. Children need to learn to follow through, they need to learn a sense of pride in a job well done. It will mold their minds and souls into that of an adult ready to face their worlds on their own. We need to remind them of the words found in God’s word in Romans 5:1-5~
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been pored out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us”
Imagine where the young man in the picture would be if he gave up just because things got hard. I doubt if he would be swimming a race in the ocean. Children need to know that their sufferings of the moment will yield such a fruitful harvest of perseverance, character and hope that will carry they far into their adulthood years. Children also need to see perseverance being modeled in our lives, so the will have the knowledge of how to handle difficult situations in the future.
What about your family? How do you teach the important legacy of perseverance in your home?
~Now it’s time to link up !~
This link up will be happening every Thursday at Leaving a Legacy. You can link up your posts that deal with leaving a legacy and posts that offer encouragement to the community.
- To link up go to the sidebar and get the code for the Legacy Leaver Thursdays button, right click and “save as” on the code and then upload it into your post. Or you can provide a direct link somewhere in your post linking back here. That way other bloggers can join in too!
- Then copy and paste the direct link from your post, (not your blog url), into the linky tool below.
- In order to create an encouraging community here, please take a moment to visit the person in front of you. As time permits, I will read as many of your posts as possible throughout the week. Thank you!
For those of you that link up throughout the month, I will be choosing a “featured blogger”, for the following month. The featured blogger will be someone who actively participates in the link up, and who’s posts have really touched the community. They will receive free advertising for their blog on my sidebar for that month, and also be allowed to submit one approved guest post during that month.
October’s featured blogger of the month is my dear friend Jenifer from Sweet Blessings. Please take a moment to stop by her blog and receive hope and encouragement in Jesus!
Many Blessings~
Linking to:
Thought Provoking Thursday
Denis in Bloom
What a great post! That was pretty much our rule while raising our kids. If you joined the team, you finished out the season — even if it meant sitting on the bench the majority of the time. I didn’t want them thinking they could just quit because it wasn’t as fun as they thought… That’s a fabulous picture! Front page worthy to be sure 🙂
Thank you for your kind words.
Blessings to you~
Shari
Great encouragement!! This is something that I struggle with sometimes, not all of the time though. If I just really don’t like it I want so bad to give up and have to remind myself that I am teaching my kids. Last year I committed to something for 2012 and it did not turn out like I was expecting and I do not like it. My human self wants so bad to just back out. But I know that I committed for one year and I have to stick it out! Thank you for the encouragement!
“You need to finish what you start. Oh boy, we’re in the process of encouraging my son with this too. I want him to learn the value of following through.
Thanks for the reminder. It’s good to read that other families are doing this too. I feel encouraged!