Words to Live By

       Hello family and friends! I have decided to start a blog. Yes, I know, blogging can become a black hole into which all “spare” time is consumed. However, living on the east coast when my family and childhood friends live on the west coast, I need a way to share thoughts, photos, memories, and sentiments in a semi-broad form. Perhaps our lives can be a little more connected this way.       

      The name of my blog, ”In the Arena,” is part of a quote by President Theodore Roosevelt that never ceases to inspire, challenge, and encourage me. It reminds me that life is not about striving to survive unscathed by failure, disappointment, or pain. Rather, life is about learning to prevail precisely when our lives are touched by these very things. The reality of this world is that we will fail thousands of more times than we will succeed, we will feel the sting of disappointment ever more often than we will experience delight, and we will taste the bitterness of pain more times than we will savor the sweetness of sheer bliss. The success of one’s life seems to be defined by how one learns from failure, overcomes disappointment, and faces pain without allowing it to consume all joy. In the midst of life’s trails, we need not become discouraged, but rather ask, “Am I in the arena?”  Am I still pressing forward? Am I still fighting? Or to use a football analogy/phrase ,”Am I leaving it all on the field?”      

        If you are anything like me, you often find yourself ”marred by dust and sweat and blood…[coming] up short again and again.” Even since I started writing this post a week ago, I have been met by a few unpleasant surprises which have tempted me to despair. I have thought of this quote often and have asked God to keep me in the arena. I know that my will is weak when compared to some of the cruelties of life. It is only the strength of our supremely powerful God that can infuse my will with steel.    

      So without further ado, here is my “quote to live by:”

      “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt in speech “Citizenship in a Republic”

    May we all stay in the arena, for it is only there that we risk our hearts on a dream, that we excel, and that we realize our weakness and are inspired to reach up for strength from above.  

   Staying in the arena by His grace, 

   Lauren (and Caleb) Q.