Endurance Paper Prints

14.5" x 8.75"

by Rosemarie Adcock

In our lives as followers of Jesus Christ, we often find ourselves going through difficulties made especially more complicated trying to walk through them the way Jesus Himself might. This painting is an allegory of the virtue of endurance. The woman is in the boat with no oars, moving forward with closed eyes, not knowing where she is going, as she moves through the water propelled by a current, not by her own strength. The wilted and drying rose hints at the length of the journey, yet the facial expression is one of peace, implied by the Greek word in the golden letters, which is written as the name on the boat. The Greek word for Endurance is not the way we often think of enduring, in other words, tolerating or putting up with something. Rather, the Greek word for endurance implies a hopeful and expectant waiting for something, which is the very thing that carries us through a difficult unknown, the expectation of a good outcome at the end of the long journey. The Book of Psalms, songs of their day, are wonderful words of encouragement, of the joys and sorrows of people throughout the ages that lived as we do, trying to follow God in our earthly lives.