I have had two lessons in persistence this week.
Lesson 1: a young lady from India wants admission to our Ph.D. program. Somehow her application got sent to Biology. Through sheer persistence, she persuaded me to 1) Figure out what went wrong, 2) find a copy of her application, 3) reactivate same, 4) scan in her entire app. 5) find her 3 letters of rec (sent to Bio) 6) send our her app for review. It looks like she'll be admitted now.
Lesson 2: I have just been working in our yard (garden, or as Torgny says, "jungle") trimming back some over-growth. We have a variety of desirable plants: native Oak-leaf hydrangeas, American strawberry bush, nandina, and lots of others. Likewise, we have a list of undesirables (my opinion, which if I hold the trimmer is the only one that really counts): wisteria, privet, cherry magnolia, and others. Every spring and summer I use various trimmers to whack back the undesirables to the ground. BUT... they always come back. Indeed I can sometimes see the short stump from where I whacked them previously. As I whack I think, "surely this will be discouraging, in one quick whack I am wiping out their entire spring growth efforts!"
Lesson 3: They never quit! They never get discouraged. They persist, despite my persistence in whacking them.
Oh, that I would be so persistent! A little discouragement and i am ready to quit. A setback and i so often give up. A defeat and so often surrender.
It really doesn't matter what I consider desirable or undesirable. G^d makes that decision. I can read and listen, and attempt to follow. But what happens when I encounter discouragement, setbacks, defeat?
Perhaps I should take a lesson from the little wisteria.
Lesson 1: a young lady from India wants admission to our Ph.D. program. Somehow her application got sent to Biology. Through sheer persistence, she persuaded me to 1) Figure out what went wrong, 2) find a copy of her application, 3) reactivate same, 4) scan in her entire app. 5) find her 3 letters of rec (sent to Bio) 6) send our her app for review. It looks like she'll be admitted now.
Lesson 2: I have just been working in our yard (garden, or as Torgny says, "jungle") trimming back some over-growth. We have a variety of desirable plants: native Oak-leaf hydrangeas, American strawberry bush, nandina, and lots of others. Likewise, we have a list of undesirables (my opinion, which if I hold the trimmer is the only one that really counts): wisteria, privet, cherry magnolia, and others. Every spring and summer I use various trimmers to whack back the undesirables to the ground. BUT... they always come back. Indeed I can sometimes see the short stump from where I whacked them previously. As I whack I think, "surely this will be discouraging, in one quick whack I am wiping out their entire spring growth efforts!"
Lesson 3: They never quit! They never get discouraged. They persist, despite my persistence in whacking them.
Oh, that I would be so persistent! A little discouragement and i am ready to quit. A setback and i so often give up. A defeat and so often surrender.
It really doesn't matter what I consider desirable or undesirable. G^d makes that decision. I can read and listen, and attempt to follow. But what happens when I encounter discouragement, setbacks, defeat?
Perhaps I should take a lesson from the little wisteria.
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