Suffering Produces Endurance

Thank you Christian for nominating me for a 3-Day Quote Challenge.  Here are three quotes I’d like to share with my readers.

“Donald Trump will be our next president.”  This statement came from my competitive friend, Mr. G.,  in September 2015.  At that point, I wasn’t convinced that Donald Trump still wouldn’t drop out of the presidential race.  I can hear Mr. G. now, “I win, you lose.”  (I guess that makes two quotes?)

“Boring is good,”  Mr. D.  As far as life goes, yes.  The less drama the better.  Ya’ll know what I mean.

“Hurting people hurt people.”  A very wise friend, Mrs. W., said these words to me at a time that I was advising two ladies that had had a conflict.  These words have stuck with me.  I don’t always stop and think about them when I should–when I’m about to or have already lashed out at someone.  Instead of lashing out, I need to stop and think why I’m hurting and solve that problem instead of creating another.

These words come to mind more often when someone else hurts me.  It immediately draws my attention away from myself and the injury I have sustained and back towards the person that inflicted the injury.  They must be hurting.  How?  Why?  I immediately feel sorrowful for that person instead of myself and for the pain they must be experiencing.

Romans 5:3-4 tells us that suffering produces endurance:  “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,”  Let’s not forget that “faithful are the wounds of a friend,” Proverbs 27:6.

When I think of endurance, Hebrews 12:1 always comes to mind, “and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”  After taking up running in 2015, I completely understand that running is all about endurance.  It doesn’t matter what you look like or how much weight you can lift, if you are lacking endurance you won’t get very far.  Of course, this verse is referring to our spiritual endurance.  We need endurance to get through life physically and spiritually.

The next time you are wounded by a friend, try to remember that hurting people hurt people and focus back on your friend and their wounds instead of yours.  But, when you do think of your wounds, remember that suffering produces endurance, which is something we need for survival.  Endurance produces character, and character produces hope which I believe is as important as the air we breathe.