Give Up and Go Home.

Posted bymalcolmsmusingscomPosted inUncategorized

Yesterday…

…Singing ‘Sloop John B’ at our ‘Singing for Health’ group. We sung it with joy and energy. It was good fun.

It’s an old folk song from the Bahamas – about boats carrying pineapples. The writer‘s far from fun. ‘This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on’. He’s badly treated; there’s drunken fights; he’s feeling ‘so broke up’ that he wants to give up and go home.

I’ve been there.

…Reading a Winston Churchill biography… the unlikely prime minister who led our country through the Second World War. Yesterday I read Churchill’s words:

‘Never give in, never give in, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in, except in convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.’

Churchill constantly demonstrated that hard times were hard, they were endurable. Give up and go home? Never!

This morning…

…Getting up to England’s final wickets in a disastrous test match against India. Despite Joe Root’s brave efforts our boys have been well and truly beaten. Although we won the first match we lost the other four.

Following this final match and a disheartening series the team must give up and go home, although I’m sure they’ll regroup for further internationals in the summer.

…Reading about Harriet Tubman. Many will remember her tomorrow; she died on March 10th 1913.

After a remarkable, courageous escape from slavery Tubman enabled many hundreds of slaves to find freedom through the ‘Underground Railroad’, a network of activists and safe houses.

She said: ‘If you are tired, keep going; if you are hungry, keep going… If you hear the dogs, keep going, if you see the torches in the woods, keep going, if there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”

Keep going – not to give up and go home, but with persistence, through difficulties and troubles, no matter what…

11 thoughts on “Give Up and Go Home.”

  1. I needed this today, Bro. Thank you for writing it. I LOVED the men’s voices singing Sloop John B.

    I wish I could join your Music for Wellbeing group. I’m completely qualified. Maybe in Glory, huh!

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  4. Thank you, Malcolm, for these inspiring examples of those who did not give up. We just watched the film, “The Gathering Storm” about Winston Churchill and the years leading up to WW II, and then the sequel (albeit with different actors), “Into the Storm.” He certainly had his flaws, but God used Churchill nonetheless during a time of extreme crisis. A good lesson for us all.

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