In the end, it’s true, “In this world, we will have trouble.” But Jesus also said, “take heart! I have overcome the world.” That’s the hope I cling to.
Source: When Storms Roll In
Photo Credit: Cloudy Sky Across The Horizon | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
Hope
When Storms Roll In
It was one of THOSE days today. The kind where darkness threatens to descend and overtake any hint of joy. Where I’m tempted to let the blanket of discouragement douse out the flicker of hope.
I’ve been writing a lot about trials lately, but quite honestly it seems I’ve been in the clear for a few months. After a long rollercoaster season of ups and downs, I’ve come to the point where I can see clearly enough to write encouragement from a higher perspective. It’s not that it’s been an easy year, in particular, just a less afflicted year.
Then came some discouraging news, a new wave of challenges brewing on the horizon. I guess I’m not off the hook, after all. Didn’t Jesus say, “in this world, we will have trials”? Yet when they come, we’re tempted to throw those OTHER promises in his face—the lighter, easier ones that don’t deal with suffering. “Why have you forsaken me?” we cry, forgetting it’s not him who’s forsaken us.
Maybe, in the end, it’s us who’ve forsaken his word, looking to it only for the promises of ease and comfort. We accuse God of giving us a stone when we asked for bread, not remembering the word that declares God a loving father who gives his children what they need. It’s a matter of how we see each gift he gives.
When his precious daughter Rachel was killed in the 1999 Columbine massacre, Darrel Scott talked about developing “see through” vision. When it seemed he’d been handed a stone, he was determined to see through his awful tragedy to the good that could come from it. He devoted his life, and his daughter’s memory, to bring blessing in the midst of evil.
I can’t say I’ve yet encountered anything near as tragic as Darrel Scott and his family, but I can say his sentiments about “see through” vision have kept me over the years through the various trials I’ve encountered. I’m learning to take what’s given me and see that God can take even the most hopeless of circumstances and bring forth life.
In the end, it’s true, “In this world, we will have trouble.” But Jesus also said, “take heart! I have overcome the world.” That’s the hope I cling to.
“Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10)
Photo Credit: Rainy Skies on the Horizon | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
The Power of Words
Words have the power to free and encourage, strengthen and uplift. If our words are to gain such power, we must go through many difficulties to bring them to birth.
Source: The Writer’s Burden
Photo Credit: File:Butterflies looks like flower.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
The Writer’s Burden
It’s hard to write when the heart is heavy. Hard, but therapeutic. There’s something freeing about weaving thoughts into words. I’ve often said I don’t know what I really think about something until I get it down on paper.
And so in the pain and confusion that so often is life, I’m grateful for pens and journals and computer keyboards. Even though I just spent a half hour pouring my heart out on this topic and the computer deleted every last word. Ugh. Admitted, I attempted to strangle my computer after the fact. Not so therapeutic.
Anyhow, I’ve found that writers are called to bear burdens. One is called modern technology, but that’s the least of them. Often, we’re called to walk through valleys long before anyone else gets there—just so they won’t be alone once they do.
When Moses was called to lead a nation of former slaves through the wilderness, he asked for help from a man named Hobab, telling him, “Please do not leave us. You know where to camp in the wilderness, and you can be our eyes.” This man had been through the wilderness, and now his calling would be to help others make their way through.
Every burden we’re called to bear endows us with strength and wisdom to help others when they encounter similar trials. Each of us has been entrusted with a gift of suffering in whatever form it comes, which enables us to lighten the burden for others when they walk under the heaviness of life’s trials.
This is true for everyone, but I find it to be true for writers in particular. Words have the power to free and encourage, strengthen and uplift. If our words are to gain such power, we must go through many difficulties to bring them to birth. In the end, it will be worth it, if even one life is changed as a result.
Photo Credit: Free stock photo: Valley, Mountains, River, Stream – Free Image on …
Our Help
We have a God who sympathizes with our every weakness and gives us power to change.
If we need help, all we have to do is ask.
Don’t Look Back
Finally!
They’re here! My butterflies have finally emerged from their cocoons in glorious splendor. Now they flitter around in their little habitat, having forgotten the caterpillars they once were.
It’s been miraculous to witness their transformation. Before I left with my family on a mini-vacation, the butterflies-to-be were still in their cocoons. As a matter of fact, I was wondering if they’d died. There was no movement, no sign of life. I thought we wouldn’t miss anything during our few days away, but I thought wrong. Those little things wriggled their way out while we were gone, and I came home to a garden full of butterflies.
The butterflies’ emergence reminds me of the season we endured before our first adoption. While I knew the outcome would be worth it, there were times when the waiting was unbearable. The worst part was not knowing if anything would happen at all. At times, there seemed to be no forward motion, or any motion for that matter—just dead stillness and deafening silence.
Sometimes waiting feels like being trapped inside a cocoon. There are times it’s difficult to believe anything good will come of it. But as the Bible verse says, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair.” We are never without hope. There will come a time when we, too, will forget the cocoon that once imprisoned us.
Ten years after having started the adoption process, my husband and I have two kids. One is almost eight, the other is already three. That season of waiting is long gone and we have new promises to hold on to.
There will come a time when your waiting will be over and you’ll stand on the other side of your promise. You’ll behold the glorious transformation of winter to spring, death to life. I can’t tell you when your waiting will end, but I can tell you this one thing…it’s gonna be worth it.
Photo Credit: File:Painted Lady at Butterfly World.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
This Life & Beyond 
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