Strength Means Never Giving Up

Someone told me today that I was a very strong woman.

She apparently didn't hear my conversation last week when I was not much bigger than a crumpled up piece of paper at the bottom of my waste basket. Strength was certainly not what I was feeling at the time.

I don't blame her observation though - it was the same thought I had about a lot of military wives I've met over the years; every time I completed an interview with a wife whose husband was overseas, I would think Wow. She is so strong. Could I ever be that strong if Cliff deployed?

It's a question I've had opportunity to examine since Cliff was, in fact, deployed this year, and the answer that I think I've come up with is that you don't find strength; strength finds you and it doesn't always come from where you might think.

I used to think strength was in lots of activity and projects and quantity and confidence. Survive a hurdle, a challenge, a crisis and you were stronger for it. You found the strength to get through it, to keep going. What I think now, however, is that being strong is not a matter of how much weight you can lift, but how much you can hold. How far you can run, not necessarily how fast. How long you can go, not how quickly.

Exercise has been my anti-depressant of choice during this deployment. Working out has been a daily necessity. When the sweat is rolling down my face and the numbers on the cardio machine show I still have a good 30 minutes to go before my time is complete, I compare it to the deployment. Literally, step by step is what it takes to keep going, to will myself to the finish line, to the timer that says 0:00, to the homecoming where I will stand in the airport and try to keep the tears from coming before my husband even gets off the plane. There in that gym, I push myself and as I do so, I get stronger. Figuratively and literally speaking.

Just as I push myself to go that next ten minutes on the ellipsis, I can push myself to go another month without my husband. I can push for another month of tucking our son in by myself, and spending another Friday night alone in front of the tv. I can push to enjoy summer in our backyard, watching our little boy swing, and I can push myself through a bad week.

I push myself because I don't like the alternative. See, I can be strong, or I can wither and wilt and watch my spirit die. Not gonna happen.

There's another place where my strength comes from. It's the same Place where I get my hope and my assurance that no matter what happens, I'm being looked after. I'm being watched. I'm being loved. I'm being cared for even when I feel absolutely alone.

God promises He will never leave me or forsake me. He gives us strength to face whatever tomorrow brings.

I can do all things through Christ...

The bills. The yard. The car repairs. The leaky pipe under the guest bathroom sink. The choice of time with my little boy over time I think I could be spending doing other things.

...Who strengthens me.

Who helps me smile when I want to frown. Who helps me laugh instead of cry. Who helps me wake up and get out of bed each and every single morning.

I am learning there is strength in saying no. There is strength in adjusting your priorities. And there is strength in the waiting.

And so I wait. And I keep going. And I am strong.