Battles of Courage

We’ve been learning about American history this year in our homeschool studies, avoiding textbooks whenever possible. History is my favorite and I especially love reading good literature to my kids to tell the stories of the past. Historical facts are far more fascinating when the cold and absent details are filled in with vibrant colors of struggle, courage and emotion… where friends and family members have names and fears and challenges to overcome.

This week we read a book about Abigail Adams. Several chapters in, one of my boys said, “Why are we reading about her? It doesn’t seem like she did anything.” I know what he meant. We’ve read many stories about soldiers and spies. Settlers and pioneers. George Washington and Captain John Smith. The Vikings and the Pilgrims. Life altering discoveries. Battles for survival. Sacrifices for liberty.

Bold acts of bravery often make for a better story. 

The excitement of doing something that matters, facing all the dangerous risks, tugs at secret places in our hearts. There is a deep-seated urge to live a life with the kind of grand accomplishments that make it in the history books. 

And I suppose that’s what I like most about reading Abigail’s story. She didn’t fight in the war or smuggle weapons or risk her life for freedom. Her ordinary life is perhaps slightly more relatable to my little world.

Her story wasn’t one brave solitary feat which the book framed its narrative around. Hers was years of tedious and faithful sacrifice. The tiresome efforts of keeping a farm running and raising little children with her husband away forming a new country, all during a time of great conflict and uncertainty all around her.

Her courage was found in the day to day perseverance in the midst of great struggle.

Abigail Adams buried a young child. 

Her loss took up one little paragraph. Amidst all the other daily demands and overwhelming responsibilities, she experienced the most profound agony ever to haunt a mother’s world. The depth of her bravery to keep taking her next breath and keep loving her children, supporting her husband and persevering through crippling sorrow could no doubt fill a book. A broken mom still functioning after the death of a child, continuing to live, day in and day out, fighting weariness and paralyzing pain just might have more lessons on courage than anyone. 

Bravery in bold acts is inspiring but perseverance in the mundane builds the character that withstands the fire. 

Anthony had infusion number 7 this week. Hopefully there’s only one more after this. Then comes the tests and scans and hopefully the All Clear on the cancer front. 

It’s not been fun. Definitely not ever signing up for this trial again. The side effects from the chemo are discouraging and debilitating and annoying. Anthony of course is a warrior and never complains. But the misery is silently etched on his face at times, easy to miss if you aren’t really looking. But it’s there. Cancer has taken its toll.

A normal year for Anthony finds him on overseas trips with Hope Partners, visiting Hope Centers, leading teams, supporting workers in the field. I love when he comes home and tells us stories. The children who have been rescued and the transformation taking place in their lives. The accounts of the bold servants of the Lord who have stepped out in faith to love the hurting and broken and proclaim the light of Jesus in really dark places. I hope our kids see our commitment to kingdom work. That our passion is truly eternity.

But this wasn’t a normal year. Instead of overseas adventures, there was oncology trips and doctors appointments and weariness and nausea and waiting. 

I pray that this year which forced his removal from front line Kingdom work in impoverished nations showed our children a different component of Kingdom work. A different side of fighting. Pictures of endurance and faithfulness in the dreary and the unwelcome. Because really, life has a lot of that. 

Disappointment. Grief. Struggle. Trials.

And I think some of the bravest people I’ve ever seen are the ones who walk into the oncology office and park themselves in their infusion chair and sit quietly for hours while chemo drugs slowly trickle into their body, killing just as many good cells as they do the bad ones. 

To keep looking forward with hope when chemo is poisoning you and guzzling away your energy, all while knowing you’ll have to keep coming back and enduring this life-sucking beating again and again and again. That’s courage. 

The cancer waiting game requires immense perseverance. As do loss and trials and hardships. It takes a great deal of courage to keep getting out of bed every morning when your heart has been shattered. To keep looking forward with joy and continually uprooting all the painful seeds of anger and bitterness and disappointment in order to prevent their dangerous growth in our hearts. 

Some stories of courage are much more glamorous and inspiring to tell. They captivate the audience with fascinating, edge of our seat accounts that take our breath away.

I love these stories. I love how they stir in my kids the call to boldness. The inspiration to accomplish great things for God. Fight injustice. Make a difference. Change lives for the Kingdom. 

But I also pray they see that courage doesn’t sprout up overnight. That doing the hard things, while it sounds heroic and tough, actually encompasses a whole lot of faithfulness and tenacity. Sacrifice and obedience. Patience and perseverance. 

For all the exciting Crossing the Delaware nights, there are long Valley Forge seasons. Of waiting and praying. Days and months and years of discipline and surrender. Sometimes, discomfort and pain. Suffering and struggling. The grit needed to face the brave acts that become memorialized in famous paintings happen in the freezing, lonely nights where pain threatens to steal your limbs and maybe even your very life.

The courage it takes to show up on the Lexington Green and face down an army of tyranny might just be paralleled by the determination to keep functioning when grief is threatening to suffocate you. And keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep fighting for your other kids, keep fighting for your marriage, keep fulfilling the tedious responsibilities of dinner and laundry and errand running and basically just showing up.

I’m thankful for the stories like Abigail’s. That show the sacredness of the mundane. The beauty of perseverance. The virtue of faithfulness in the unknown. 

Not all of us will have a Delaware to cross in our lives. Nor might we be called on to spy on the enemy or rescue enslaved humans and smuggle them to safety. 

For some of us, our greatest battles are just taking that next step forward in faith. Knowing with confidence that He will never leave us nor forsake us. 

I believe my kids have a front row seat to bravery right here. May this battle inspire them to greatness and always point them to eternity.