Recent History
I'm 26 years old and I live outside of Pittsburgh, PA. For the past three years, I've been on a journey. One that has been set by my Lord and I want to share the lessons that I've learned. In May 2013, my mom went to the ER with a terrible headache. Turns out it was a leaking Brain Aneurysm. She was rushed into surgery the next day and I drove all night (I was living in TN at the time) but was only minutes short of seeing her before she went back for 12 hours of brain surgery. I have had to rely on God's patience basically from that day until the present.
After several intense weeks of NICU visits, decisions about breathing and feeding tubes, and praying, she improved little by little each day. Eventually she was stepped down to a less intense unit, regained many functions, transferred to an in-patient rehabilitation hospital and a nursing home for recovery. Almost six months later, she was strong enough to come home (October 2013). I quit the job I found when I returned home to care for her. She continues to improve and gain back all the functions she lost. Since there was a lot of blood on her brain from the leaking, she suffered from a hemorrhagic stroke leaving her weak on her right side. She was able to relearn to walk (with a quadcane). She only has mild difficulty with her right arm and hand but there is so much room to get back everything. I thank God every day that I have a chance to spend with her. I still look back on those months and the only way we (my sister and I) survived it was relying on God and His strength.
Therefore, if you are going through a tough storm or season right now, keep your focus on the Lord because only His strength can get you through. This is one of the greatest truths I have learned in the past year.
Recently, I've been struggling with the fact that my mom takes center stage of my life and all my energy. However, slowly I am giving her more responsibilities and working on my professional life. I started going back to school in the Spring of 2014 to earn my Master's Degree in Teaching. I will be certified to teach Chemistry in a little more than a year!
My Spiritual Journey
When I was younger, I didn't read the Bible much. Even when I started to go to Church in my teens, I barely opened my Bible and didn't know the stories other than Jesus' Birth and Death. It was almost a full year after I really decided to start to commit my life to Christ before I regularly reading my Bible. Every year, my Church always has Bible Reading Guides for the New Year. It was in 2011 that I decided to take one and commit to the readings. I have a pretty type A personality so checking the boxes off each day was my main motivator. Then that Easter, my wonderful Aunt, bought me a NIV Study Bible.
It was like a code was cracked and I was able to start piecing information together. The reading guide wasn't chronological so I got to skip around and sample different parts of the Bible. I still didn't meditate on it or even put most into practice. It was just the foundation. Slowly and surely when I read, I felt convicted of changing certain actions and adopting new attitudes. I was feeding my soul the Food it desired for so long.
Why Patient Endurance?
It's taken me more than a year to actually write about the name of my blog. It was just a phrase that I felt like the Lord was whispering to my heart through all of the past two years. Patient because God was going to work in His time not mine, so I just need to wait. Endurance because it's not going to be a quick trial or journey but one that will last awhile. There are many verses in the Bible, usually the ESV version that command people to have patient endurance while serving God. In the NIV version, the phrase is translated to perseverance which, when I think about it encompasses both patience and endurance. But I still like Patient Endurance better because it reminds me that perseverance doesn't happen overnight. Join me on my journey of learning about the Lord, loving science, cats, crochet, backyard chickens and more!
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