Testing produces steadfastness.

Ever wonder what would happen if you won the lottery? When that number gets crazy high and you go out and buy ‘just that one ticket’- just in case. It’s fun to have those conversations with friends and family about what you would do with that kind of cash.

Would that make your life perfect? Most would have the maturity and life experience to know deep down that wouldn’t equate to a perfect life. So what would?

What would make your life just perfect?

For centuries people have been dreaming up answers to that very question. Many pursue that very life…or spend a lot of time bemoaning the fact they missed it. There are people mature enough to know that the very testing of our ‘perfect life’ produces steadfastness.

This word steadfastness can mean very different things to different people. Some would call it “endurance.” Others would use “perseverance.” Still others call it “patience.” I would call it “everything I could ever want in life.”

I would describe this word as the idea of remaining under; staying put; not wriggling and writhing away from the many points in life that cause pressure.

Our lives are overrun with things that exert pressure. I love my wife, don’t get me wrong, but our marriage can cause stress…just as singleness for many can. I love my job, but managing all of that responsibility is stressful. There can be tensions among family. What about aging? And those are just some of the routine forms of pressure in our lives. There are many things that are unpredictable. Health problems, children in trouble, no children, car trouble, and those seemingly random weeks where everything just seems to go wrong.

The harder the pressure, the more we wish for any way to ‘just be done.’ Bail, quit, flee. But is this what we really want? How does that pressure shape us as people? How do we grow? Good things in our lives often grow through our ability to “remain under” the pressure.

I already know that I have everything that matters in life. My life is “perfect.” It’s complete. I have a good life, great wife, good job, and wonderful people who build me up each day. I don’t want for much. This doesn’t mean I don’t have “pressure”, that my life doesn’t get hard, that there aren’t challenges. There are plenty of those. But my faith gives me the ability to be steady under pressure, confident in the idea of what will happen will happen for a reason.

The best decisions I have made in life are the ones where I stayed bolted in place when I was being pressed down by trials and tribulations and I refused to walk away. You see these moments shape my character to the core. Because when I endure; when I persevere; when I grind out with patience what is required of me to handle those moments…I plan to come out with the very best thing in the world…steadfastness.

And trust me when I say, my adoption will be “perfect.” Just how it’s supposed to be. And I will grow, learn, move, change, mature and my children, my life, and myself will be better off for it.

~Eli