What Happens When Endurance Gets Hard

Today, I have a special post for you written by my dear friend, Olivia (Liv) Swindler. I normally don’t feature guest authors, but I wanted to share my friend Liv’s thoughts with you because, as a 32-year-old single woman, she has a different perspective from mine. As my go-to techy friend, I like to joke that she “makes my life happen.” Liv and I met three years ago at The Falls Church Anglican and bonded over our love of dogs, hiking, books, and sports!

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In February of 2020, I discovered what is now one of my favorite words—hupomoné. At the time, I had been living in France for almost four years, working for Young Life in the small town of Grenoble, and I was exhausted.

Each week, my team would faithfully plan an event and pray that the kids we knew would show up. Sometimes they did, most of the time they didn’t.

According to Strong’s Concordance, hupomoné translates to cheerful (or hopeful) endurance, constancy—enduring, patience, patient continuance (waiting). No word had convicted me more. The thought that endurance could be cheerful, or even hopeful, felt like a flashing sign from the Lord that I needed an attitude adjustment.

My favorite use of hupomoné is in Luke 8 when Jesus shared the parable of the sower. “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” (Luke 8:15). Producing a crop requires perseverance. It requires a cheerful and consistent trust in what the Lord is doing. A tree doesn’t bear fruit overnight. It takes time, care, love, and attention.

I was in my early twenties when I moved to France. I was wide-eyed, hopeful, and assumed that within days I would be speaking French like a native. Instead, I was lonely and trying to find my feet in a new culture, all in a language I barely understood. It was through this experience that I learned how to depend on the Lord—I simply had no other option.

Grenoble sits in the valley of three mountain ranges. From every angle, I was met with the glory of the Lord’s creation. Within the first month of living there, I stumbled across Isaiah 54:10, “‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” Every morning, I prayed that the Lord would reveal His steadfast love to me. In a time when everything around me felt shaky, I needed the consistent reminder that the Lord is unchanging.

It was through this daily prayer and posture that I found the word hupomoné. It was because of the Lord’s steadfastness that I was able to endure cheerfully. It was much easier to sow the ground where He had placed me when I was reminded of the Lord’s unchanging nature.

So, how can we cultivate a cheerful endurance in difficult seasons?

• Turn your eyes upon Jesus
  Living in the mountains gave me a daily visual picture of the Lord’s steadfastness. In times and seasons that are difficult, I pray that the Lord would reveal to me everyday, ordinary things that point me back to His glory and greatness.
• Celebrate what the Lord is doing around you
  In a season of persevering, it might be hard to notice what the Lord is doing in your life (at least it can be for me!). In these moments, I ask the Lord to remind me how He’s working in the lives of those around me. When I was persevering in France and felt like my ministry wasn’t growing, I made it a point to ask my friends and colleagues how they were experiencing the Lord in their work and ministry. This was not only a helpful perspective for my own life, but reminded me that the Lord was working.
• Be still
  Leave your phone behind and sit with Scripture. In a world that is moving at a hundred miles an hour, it’s easy to distract ourselves. There is always something productive that can be done—this was a tension I felt especially when working in full-time ministry. But it was in the stillness that I was able to pause and see what the Lord was doing, even when it didn’t look like I expected.

I encourage you today to say out loud where you see the Lord working. If you’re in a season where it’s hard to have cheerful endurance, call a friend and ask how the Lord is working in her life. It is not only honoring to the Lord to share what He’s doing, but it’s encouraging for your friend to remember and share where the Lord is moving.

I moved to Virginia in 2022, and the ministry in Grenoble and across France is still growing. I praise the Lord for the season of cheerful perseverance, for it has led to growth and depth. But even more, this season of enduring has shaped how I view times of waiting today. Today, I find myself in a different season, but I am experiencing more of the truth of “steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:3). I know persevering will always be a challenge this side of heaven, but the Lord is steadfast.