Don't Give Up!

           “Drink this, dear,” Mrs. Graham said, then placed a cup of hot tea on the kitchen table and tenderly patted my shoulder. “You’ve had quite a scare today. This will make you feel better.”

With trembling hands, I lifted the teacup and sipped Mrs. Graham’s own special recipe of cinnamon-clove spice tea.

            “You’re a good teacher, Elsie. You’ve done a wonderful job teachin’ the children at Shady Grove, and you’ve helped Will Robison so much; but don’t you think it might be wise to end the school term early and go on back to your family at Rankin’s Cove? There’ll be another opportunity for you to teach next year.” ¹

            When troubles come, our natural tendency is to want to just give up. Only two months after the release of The Schoolhouse, my publisher declared bankruptcy, and I became an “orphaned” author. The daunting task of moving a mountain of books into the sea of people fell into my hands – a seemingly impossible mission.

            However, I have a Comforter greater than cinnamon-clove spice tea that says, “Keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9 HCS).

            Are you ready to give up? DON’T! “We must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up!” (Galatians 6:9 HCS)

  ¹   Jill Watson Glassco. The Schoolhouse (Peoria, AR: LifeHouse Publishing, 2012), 32-33.

                                   (The Schoolhouse is available online at Amazon.com)