WRITEON FOR MAY 20, 2020 sister alies. This weather has been so luscious. Warming early in the morning, growing things, and well, might I say, my most favorite month in Mississippi? Anyway, it is still a difficult time for so many and I do hope that the families of our Choctaw County who have lost loved ones or those who remain unwell will be blest. It is so easy to complain about this or that…and yet in the face of something greater we recognize perhaps the opportunity to do something about it. One of the ways we do that is to stay with it as Earl Nightingale shares: “We read about people who sail around the world in a 35’ sailboat or overcome handicaps to win a gold medal at the Olympics…this is persistence. I remember well the day I first sat down to write the first of my radio programs. That was more than 20 years ago, more than 5,200 programs ago, the equivalent of 36 full-length books. Certainly no world’s record, but a good example of what persistence can do. When we see the tired faces of commuters on the big city subway, and children climbing aboard the school, bus, we see persistence at work. We see it in the expression of the wife doing grocery shopping or the week’s laundry. But everything we do contributes to the life we lead, the joys we experience, the satisfactions we realize from time to time. And persistence itself is a joy when we’re doing what we enjoy and want to do. Not a very complicated formula, is it?” I wonder what you have created over these days of lockdown? What have you persisted in? I found this other bit of another story that fits for me. Many of you will recognize the persistence of this young man: “A young boy complained to his father that most of the church hymns were boring and old fashioned, with tiresome words that meant little to his generation. His father challenged him with these words:’ If you think you can write better hymns, why don’t you?’ The boy accepted the challenge, went to his room, and wrote his first hymn. The year was 1690, and the young man was Isaac Watts. Among his 350 hymns are: JOY TO THE WORLD, WHEN I SURVEY THE WONDEROUS CROSS, I SING THE ALMIGHTY POWER OF GOD, and many other classics.”[Both stories taken from ILLUSTRATIONS UNLIMITED, J.Hewett,Ed.,Tyndale,1988] Persistence and rising to the challenge is part of learning to live…to thrive rather than just being alive. Congradulations to all our graduates at every level! Who would have thought how creatively you would be receiving the key to the next level? BLESSINGS.
