“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Winston Churchill
(my Penley of Winston Chruchill /Julie Cook/ 2020)
My best-laid plans…
I started this post about 4 days ago…
such is my life right now…
Such is most of our lives right now…
So maybe I need a little pep talk.
Maybe you need a little pep talk.
I think that I might rather prefer a slight swift kick in the pants…
Swift kicks seem to leave a more lasting impression.
Plus they make for immediate forward motion.
I know we are all sick and tired of living in these “uncertain” times.
All you have to do is watch any commercial…be it for cars to credit cards…
every last one now speaks of ” these uncertain times.”
Some of them may use the word uncertain while others use challenging
and some opt for difficult or trying…
but no matter what, it is all most precarious.
But if you ask me, ever since that little apple-eating incident, we’ve long been in
“uncertain times”…but I digress.
If you don’t already know this about me, I live in Georgia.
And our governor announced earlier in the week a plan to begin “re-opening” our state
starting this Friday.
Now there is a tremendous amount of brouhaha ensuing following this executive decision.
All the way from the national level to a local level—
Georgia is now being scrutinized.
Are we crazy?
Have we lost our minds?
I, myself, am a bit torn about it all…yet I am all for jumpstarting our economy.
I’m torn mainly because a stagnant economy makes for a stagnant people,
and a stagnant people makes for a stagnant nation…and a stagnant nation makes
for a sitting duck.
And the flip to jumpstarting an economy is that of our health and wellbeing.
Start or wait then start?
Too soon?
Too late?
The apocalypse, of which was forecast in all of this, did not materialize.
No trumpets.
No horsemen.
No booming voices from on high.
However we do know that people have gotten sick, people have suffered and people have died.
So I’ll admit that we do need to go about all of this mess aggressively but also very smartly…
However, we as a people and as a nation, don’t want to knee jerk ourselves into a fetal position
of Henny Penny, the sky is falling and the end is near.
That’s not who we are.
We are home of the brave remember.
We know those who have suffered…those who have lost jobs…
those who have lost loved ones and those who have simply lost their sense of security—
all from a virus…
And thus for some, there seems to be no solace…
and that, my friend, is one key reason as to why we need to propel ourselves forward…
Yet—we are afraid.
We are fearful.
And frighteningly enough, there are those of us who are even afraid to breathe…
as in literally breathing… as we are fearful of what is in the air.
But at some point, we will have to breathe, otherwise, we will all die.
So I wonder… where will we find the correct balance?
Do we press forward or do we continue to wait?
I’d like to think we need to press forward…
but at what cost, what time?
And so that is when I recall those immortal words…
‘when you find yourself in hell, [you mustn’t stop but instead]
you must keep going!’
Those of you who know me, know that Winston Churchill is a bit of a hero of mine.
So when life, be it my own or the larger collective thing we call Life,
proves to be difficult, daunting, trying, or even challenging, I often recall the
wisdom, tenacity, and even the panache of dear old’ Winston.
I will find myself imagining what Winston might do given the same circumstance…
So while I currently find myself so very tired, worried, bewildered, confused
and even mad about the current circumstance for which we are now finding ourselves,
I imagine Winston would bellow gruffly that we must trudge forward…
because forward is the ONLY way to go.
So while I was perusing several articles about dear old Winne,
I found an interesting piece written 8 years ago by Geoff Loftus for Forbes Magazine.
The gist of the article was written basically for business management and overcoming
various obstacles but I found it most applicable to our current world…
I’ve offered a portion of the article but the link to the full
article is listed below…
May 9, 2012
Seventy-two years ago tomorrow, a chubby, stoop-shouldered,
funny faced man with a speech impediment took a new job.
The man was 65-years old and until a year earlier was generally considered
to be a crackpot and a political has-been.
His taking the new job was one of the most momentous events of the entire 20th Century.
The man was Winston Churchill, and the job was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
On May 10, 1940, the British looked to be finished.
They stood alone against the vicious and victorious Nazis.
Two weeks after Churchill came into power, France was knocked out of the war,
and 340,000 British troops had to scramble to escape over the beaches at Dunkirk.
The Germans had absolute control of all of Europe.
It seemed impossible that Britain could survive.
In other words, his plan for success: Complete and total defiance.
“We shall never surrender.”
When you have nothing left but defiance, commit to it with everything you have.
Like Prince Hal in Shakespeare’s Henry V,
Churchill used language to rouse the fighting spirit he believed was
still alive in the British people, saying, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
And the line that summed up his personal career and the spirit that led
the British people to victory:
“Never, never, never give up.”
(one of my several chalk filled figurenes and collectables of Winston)
And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit,
interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
1 Corinthians 2:13
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