Elizabeth
and Hannah
Hannah is still in ICU.
Update: Hanna is home and doing well.
Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. Tenacity is more than hanging on, which may be but the weakness of being too afraid to fall off. Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered. The greatest fear a man has is not that he will be damned, but that Jesus Christ will be worsted, that the things He stood for--love and justice and forgiveness and kindness among men--will not win out in the end; the things He stands for look like will-o'-the-wisps. Then comes the call to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the certainty that God is not going to be worsted.
If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that will not be fulfilled. One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God. "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience."
Remain spiritually tenacious.
-- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (emphasis mine)
"In the HBO miniseries The Pacific, one story arc shows Sid Phillips (portrayed by actor Ashton Holmes) dating a pretty Australian named Gwen (actress Isabel Lucas) and eventually having a sexual relationship with her.
But Sid will tell you that “Gwen” was a composite character created as a Hollywood plotline. “Gwen” never existed, and the salacious scene with Sid and Gwen was fabricated by the writers of the miniseries.
In real life, Sid struck up a friendship with a pretty 16-year-old Australian named Shirley. She had an older sister who paired up with one of Sid’s friends, Deacon Tatum.
The girls’ mother was a widow whose husband had died from effects of being gassed in WWI, and right away the mother gave the boys a stern talking to. If the Americans were to date her daughters, then they always needed to stay in a group. Neither Deacon nor Sid was ever to take either sister off by herself.
The young people grew to be close friends. Shirley’s family was poor but hardworking. The grandmother was also living in the family’s house, and the family didn’t have a refrigerator or even electricity. So Sid and Deacon frequently went to the grocery store to buy steak and potatoes and other good food that they took back to the house. The mother would prepare the food for them all. For months the two men ate at the house nearly twice a week.
Most often for outings, Sid and Deacon took the girls to movies, amusement parks, and historical sites in Melbourne. They talked and laughed and went for long walks and all hoped the war would be over soon.
The Marines were stationed in Australia for nearly a year, and when the troops were eventually shipped out to fight the battle of New Britain, Shirley and Sid parted ways. According to Sid, their relationship remained chaste the entire time." (emphasis added)
"Years later, when Sid and Shirley were both in their forties, David and Shirley Finley visited Sid and Mary Phillips in the states. During that visit the Finley’s son met the Phillips’ daughter and they became fast friends.
The son and the daughter were both just children then, but some years later, after they’d both grown up, the Finley son and the Phillips daughter reconnected. They hit it off again and eventually fell in love and got married. Today they have three children and live in Florida where Shirley’s son is also a doctor."
"The story shows what can happen when people genuinely hope the best for each other."
"I have often thought it a peculiarly unlucky circumstance in love, that though in every other situation in life telling the truth is not only the safest, but actually by far the easiest way of proceeding, a lover is never under greater difficulty in acting, nor never more puzzled for expression than when his passion is sincere and his intentions are honourable.
I do not think that it is very difficult for a person of ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness which are not felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity which are never intended to be performed, if he be villain enough to practise such a detestable conduct; but to a man whose heart glows with the principles of integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable person, uncommon refinement of sentiment, and purity of manners, to such a one in such circumstances, I can assure you my dear, from my own feelings at this present moment, courtship is a task indeed. There is such a number of foreboding fears and distrustful anxieties crowd into my mind when I am in your company, or when I sit down to write to you, that what to speak or what to write I am altogether at a loss.
There is one rule which I have hitherto practised and which I shall invariably keep with you and that is, honestly to tell you the plain truth. There is something so mean and unmanly in the acts of dissimulation and falsehood that I am surprised they can be acted by any one in so noble, so generous a passion as virtuous love. No, my dear E., I shall never endeavour to gain your favour by such detestable practices. If you will be so good and so generous as to admit me for your partner, your companion, your bosom friend through life, there is nothing on this side of eternity shall give me greater transport: but I shall never think of purchasing your hand by any arts unworthy of a man, and, I will add, of a Christian."
-- Robert Burns, from a letter to Ellison Begbie