Diligence

The path to fulfilling God’s plans for our lives often isn’t easy, but the results are always worth it … if we’ll be diligent to our calling.

THE MERRIAM-WEBSTER ONLINE DICTIONARY DEFINES THE WORD DILIGENCE AS “STEADY, EARNEST, AND ENERGETIC EFFORT.”

I can’t think of a better word for the year than diligence — for us to put steady, earnest and energetic efforts into serving God.

For those of you who have seen Hallmark’s When Calls the Heart television series, you know that Elizabeth Thatcher experienced many moments when she had to decide whether or not she was going to be diligent.

This young woman traveled west in 1915 to become a schoolteacher.

Before she even arrived in Coal Valley (as it was called then), she was the victim of stagecoach robbers. When a bedraggled Elizabeth finally arrived, she was taken aback by the hardscrabble coal town, and she received anything but a warm welcome from the women there.