Anton Chekhov, you never spoke a truer word.

 

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out. 

~Anton Chekhov

You know which bible character I have great respect for at the moment? Jacob. He may have been a bit of a bad guy- (you know, with the whole birthright stealing thing) but, man, he knew about perseverance!

For those of you who don't know the story, basically Jacob loved and wanted to marry a woman named Rachel. But her father said that he had to work for him for seven years before he could. Jacob did, but then, on the night of the wedding, her Father gave Jacob Rachel's sister, Leah instead. Jacob didn't notice this until the next morning (EPIC fail!). When he went to the Father and said "What gives?" He was told he could have Rachel as well if he worked for another seven years. And he did.

Now, I don't know about you, but this story really makes me think. Jacob worked fourteen years, to marry the woman he loved. Fourteen years! I think if you asked most men to wait fourteen years before they could marry the woman they loved (and work for her Dad too no less!) you'd be told where you could go in no uncertain terms. Heck, most married couples these days are lucky to last that long! But Jacob did it.

He isn't the best, or the brightest bible character. He did some pretty dodgy things, and I know that there are many other more honourable people in the bible. But right now, for me, I'm remembering Jacob. 

It's hard not to get bogged down in the mundane, the everyday. I think, that in many ways, it's actually easier to face hardship and crisis. But when you're doing the same thing, day in, day out- life can get pretty tough. So I think Jacob is a good example to us all, that sometimes you've just got to suck it up, and stick it out (I know that sounds so wrong, but just go with it okay?). Even though it may seem like forever when you're going through hard times. 

Now don't get me wrong, I do agree with those who say 'Life's too short to do something you hate'... to a point. But really, if nobody did anything they didn't want to, we'd all be living in pretty filthy houses. There would be lots of artists and musicians and people who got to do all the fun stuff. But there wouldn't be many sewerage workers or garbage men. And, that would be a pretty icky world to live in.

So for now, I'm going to go clean the bathroom and mop the floor. And I'm very grateful that my husband is at work. It's not easy to do things that you don't want to do. But at the end of the day, I think we grow more character and discipline in the day-to-day monotony, than we do in a crisis. I know people say, you don't really know who you are until you've been tested, and sometimes you don't. But I also think that who you are every single day of your life says more about a person's true character, and it determines what will happen when the crisis comes.