Patience and the Strength to Persevere

"Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere."  ~ Barack Obama

---

Patience has been a recurring theme in my life. A word I have grown to hate actually. This word has been rumbling around in my head for about a good two weeks now. 

I have been thinking about how I must be going through another period in my life where I just must be patient. I have been down this road before. I had to be patient when I was single and dating. Several years later, I had to be patient when Vince and I were battling infertility.

Now, I find that I have to be patient as I do my best for Striving for More, working to increase awareness of the dire need. Waiting for our big break when we start getting regular donations rolling in consistently or we get significant corporate sponsorships. I have to be honest, when I started this organization, I thought it would be so much easier. I thought when people heard about the huge gaps that existed, getting donations would be easy. I thought companies would naturally want to contribute. What organization would not want to sponsor a non profit that was helping sick children? But it is just not happening. In addition, I seem to have forces against me. There are articles in the news constantly about how children with cancer get fantastic integrative care when I know, for a fact, that there are huge gaps in some of the best hospitals in the country including the most prestigious one here in the Triangle. How can I be the only one concerned about this? 

I have been thinking from the beginning that I will get more bees with honey. Perhaps I have been wrong. Maybe I do need to use a stick. Perhaps I need to shout the travesty of inadequate care from the rooftops. I'm not sure. What do you think Barack would do?

Tonight I hope that I find the strength to persevere (because I learned a long time ago NEVER to pray for patience).

~ Until next time, Diane