Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage

In the June 14th devotion from the One Year Women's Friendship Devotional by Cheri Heath Fuller and Sandra P. Aldrich, I was intrigued by the quote at the end of the devotion. "There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before." Willia Cather, 1873-1947, American Novelist.

The devotion was centered around Deuteronomy 31:6, "Be strong and courageous! Do not be afriad and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor bandon you."

These words are very similar to Joshua 1, starting at verse 7, which I've always loved: "Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go"

And Ecclesiastes 3:15 says: "Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before . . ."The devotion talks about courageous people in the life of the author. She narrows it down to this point: "Through the years, I have learned courage doesn't alwasy mean rushing into battle. Often it calls for staying in the battle by trusting the Lord and putting one foot in front of the other."

Ordinary people, extraordinary courage. I'm encouraging a young woman even now to find that extraordinary courage to handle the trials in her life. Back to the quote.

All human stories are similar. We all go through our share of trials, and we fight fiercely when we're in them. Yet God will sustain us through them if we will only let Him.

How is your courage? We all bleed the same. But those with Christ have supernatural powers to get us through. He never fails us!

The picture above I snapped 5 minutes from home. Another lovely lightpost . . . always reminds me that Jesus is the Light of the world.