Perseverance

Many of us dive head first into things, but when the going gets tough we don’t have the perseverance to finish!

Additionally, sometimes it is hard to sacrifice our time and energy that we hold so dearly, but I am here to tell you that every effort you take, every hour you put in, holding the road or staying on the path even when you feel you have nothing left to give, will provide for you an outcome that you could never have imagined! I promise you!

I am a fighter, not necessarily by nature, but through necessity. A fighter not being in the physical sense (unless I need to defend my family), but a fighter in the sense that I don’t give up! Now not that I haven’t ever felt like giving up, but I have found through many circumstances that perseverance and EXTREME faith beats all!

“2…when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” James 1:2-4

Why am I sharing this today? For nearly the last year, we have been working on a special goal of getting the Mountain Boy involved in small motor repair. It is something that he heavily asked about while I was sick in 2015/2016 and I was just unable to make any attempts to assist him in this effort at the time, but as soon as I was last July – we moved forward. Initially, there was great promise and hope that the door was ready to open only to see that door closing. It has been a slow going process, but one that provided a lot of blessings along the way!

I think part of our struggle as humans with perseverance is due to our nature that everything has to happen NOW, but NOW is not always the plan of the Big Guy Upstairs! The good Lord works in mysterious ways and always has a plan greater and grander than our little pea of a brain can wrap our heads around.

Because I have seen SO many times in my life the great reward that comes with patience, perseverance and faith, as much as I am excited about the fruition of our dreams and desires I have learned and learned fast to keep doing my part and making the efforts necessary to make things happen and most importantly I keep my eyes open to be sure I am still allowing God to lead the way and that I am open minded enough to see his directional guidance that he does offer!

In May, another door opened and after an 18-hour evaluational period, Thursday of this week the Mountain Boy started his full-time job with a part-time schedule. Yes, that sounds a touch confusing, but the employer was kind enough to allow Austin the option to start this job at a part-time level to help him work and transition his way into his full-time position doing small motor repair.

Austin spent the entire winter training online and educating himself online while God worked out the details and it is SOOO amazing to see our boy totally in his element and SOOO passionate about his job. He is such a happy go lucky kid and is well liked on his job and has some great mentors assisting him on this journey. As I say, they are just the angels that were put in our path!

Austin our Mountain Boy is high functioning autistic with Asperger tendencies and I am here to tell you, that has never stopped either he nor I. One of the greatest things I learned early with my son was that by pushing him ever so kindly out of his comfort zone he thrived, excelled, matured and grew in such incredible ways. Here is my post What We Have Learned And Conquered With Autism. Even if you are not affected by autism or Aspergers I encourage you to read this post.

All special needs children are different, but they can overcome SO much with love and support, just like you and I. One thing I found was instead of coddling them show them that you truly believe in them by helping them conquer things that are fears to them, that are a challenges to them and that even seem impossible! We all want to be accepted and enjoy having our accomplishments celebrated – they are no different! A little extra time on our part, perseverance, and encouragement, lots of love and baby steps get the job done!

My point of this post today was to encourage you to NEVER give up on your dreams and desires no matter how big or small! Additionally, I will NEVER regret all the time, sweat, blood and tears I extended in life for my son – without that effort he would not be where he is today! It has been my pleasure and the greatest blessing to me ever to watch him transform into such a wonderful young man! He too has taught me SO much!

We are only as limited as we allow ourselves to be!

Where are you limiting yourself?