If at first....

How many times have we heard it......"if at first you don't succeed - try, try again"?  We hear it a lot as we are children.  We hear it when we are trying to learn new things.  We repeat it to ourselves when we are having difficulty with said new things.  We think it as we are getting frustrated when something isn't working right.  The questions are - how long do we keep saying it and how often do we keep trying?

The answer depends on what it is we are trying to do - right?  If we are trying to learn something new, like new techniques in quilting, we can make a choice to keep at it until we learn OR turn the project into a "ufo" in the closet.  If the 'new' is something with our care receiver we might need to keep working on it, keep trying, until we succeed.

Then we can also get the "when all else fails" idea of going back to the directions.  We can s-t-o-p and talk to God about what God wants us to do and how we should be doing it.  In Mark 5 we read about a woman who has been dealing with "constant bleeding" (vs. 25 NLT) for 12 years.  Nothing has worked.  She knows if she can just "touch his robe" (vs. 28) she will be healed.  She IS healed.  She tells her to "go in peace" because "your suffering is over."

Can we come to God?  Can we be at "peace" with what God is calling us to?  Can we keep moving forward, even trying again, with the new things God is calling us to?