Enduring

That’s the word that keeps finding me in this season.

Not one I went looking for. Not one I would have chosen. But it lingers, quietly, persistently, like it knows something I don’t yet fully understand.

Enduring.

I’ve realized something recently: I don’t question whether anything can come from an empty cup. I believe God can work with that. I believe He does. He’s not limited by what I lack.

What I wrestle with more is the why.

Why does it feel empty in the first place?

That’s where the tension lives for me right now. Not in doubt of God’s ability, but in the quiet, internal questions I don’t always know how to answer. There’s this back-and-forth I find myself in this ongoing, almost rhythmic battle between what I know and what I live.

Some days I feel steady, grounded in truth, moving with clarity. Other days, I feel the weight of resistance, tired, unmotivated, aware of what I need to do but struggling to actually do it.

And that’s where it gets complicated.

Because I know there is grace.

I know that falling short doesn’t disqualify me. I know that God is patient, that He is kind, that He understands the human condition far better than I ever could. There is a softness to that truth, a place to land when I don’t get it right.

But alongside that grace… there’s also grief.

Grief in the awareness.

Grief in recognizing patterns I wish I had outgrown. Grief in knowing the “right” choices, the better rhythms, the healthier disciplines, and still finding myself hesitating, avoiding, or falling back into what’s familiar.

It’s not ignorance. It’s not confusion.

It’s the space between knowing and doing.

And sometimes, that space feels heavier than not knowing at all.

Because awareness is a strange kind of gift. It brings clarity, but it also brings responsibility. It opens your eyes, but it doesn’t always give you the strength to move immediately in what you see.

So you sit in it.

You wrestle in it.

You endure.

I think I used to believe that enduring meant pushing through, staying strong, holding everything together without wavering. But I’m starting to see it differently now.

Enduring isn’t about pretending the cup isn’t empty.

It’s about staying even when it is.

It’s about continuing, not perfectly, not impressively, but honestly. It’s choosing not to walk away from the tension, even when you don’t have clean answers or quick fixes.

It’s trusting that God is present in the in-between too.

Maybe enduring isn’t a sign that something is wrong.

Maybe it’s evidence that something is still being worked out.

Still being formed.

Still being refined in ways I can’t fully see yet.

I don’t have a neat conclusion for this season. I don’t have a turning point to point to where everything suddenly clicks into place.

What I do have is this:

A quiet resolve to stay.

To keep showing up in the tension between grace and grief. To let both exist without trying to silence one with the other. To trust that even here, especially here, God is not absent.

And maybe… just maybe…

The cup isn’t as empty as it feels.

Maybe it’s being filled in slower, quieter ways. In ways that don’t always register immediately, but are no less real.

So for now, I’ll take the word as it comes.

Enduring.

Not as a burden, but as an invitation:

To remain.
To trust.
To be held, even here.

“Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will”. – Hebrews 10:36