One Word, Five Voices: Endure

Endure is such a harsh word. When spoken properly, there's even a drawn-out length to the second syllable. Appropriate, I think, considering it means to hold out, tolerate, suffer patiently, or even . . .
to become hardened.

In life, we have to endure pain, unfairness, hardship and suffering. These are the things that make us who we are once we overcome them. But somewhere in the mess of all of that struggle, I think it's easy to just start enduring life itself.

Here's the thing . . . I don't want to just endure life. I want to live it! I don't want to just go through the motions every day—I want to feel and experience every bit of this life I've been given. Matthew West has a song called "The Motions," and the chorus speaks to this same idea:

I don't wanna spend my whole life asking,

"What if I had given everything

instead of going through the motions?" 

We are made to be living—really living this messy life we've been handed. When my everyday starts to feel like a grind of work, feed kids, love husband, call friend, sleep, repeat . . . well, that's just me missing the point.

To quote Jen Hatmaker, I'm just going to "go ahead and live [my] one wild and beautiful and spectacular life." Simply enduring is not an option.

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 Check out what my friends think of today's word on their blogs: Shawn, Heather, Steph and Brian.