Steadfast {The Other Beatitudes}

“Blessed [happy, spiritually prosperous, favored by God] is the man who is steadfast under trial and perseveres when tempted; for when he has passed the test and been approved, he will receive the [victor’s] crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭12‬ ‭AMP‬‬

Joan of Arc cast in bronze, seated on a bench with her sword in her hands. Trees and garden foliage are blurred in background.

 

About suffering—

Which saint said, purportedly,

If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few?

 

If this is how You bless Your friends, Lord,

With trials and testings, hard-pressed to within an inch of life,

No wonder You have so few.

 

All one must do—so simple, really—is stay beneath the trial,

Not cry, “Uncle,” not tap out, not forfeit,

Just stay under the load, abide in the wrestle, not let go until He blesses.

 

Yet in the weight of distresses and difficulties,

When the furnace burns with sevenfold heat, there is no “just” about remaining.

Steadfastness takes supernatural strength when (almost) every cell cries out for relief.

Feats of Hercules bear no comparison with the courage required to stay under

Bone-crushing, breath-stealing, relentless load,

Knocked to knees, knocked to all fours, knocked prostrate in the dust,

Buried beneath the rubble of earthly hope

But not surrendering faith in God who raises the dead.

 

In the weary groaning of the waiting world,

We remember for each other, midwives of hope,

Reminding of promises that coming joy is worth the current pain,

For we know we cannot always remember for ourselves.

We spur one another on, crying out encouragement when

The thin veil parts enough to glimpse our Brother under the load alongside—

I see Him with you! I see Him in you!

His strength keeps from us one gram more suffering than needed

For our good and for His glory.

His Spirit in us intercedes—

Hold on—just one more moment—

And faith will be sight.

Stand firm to the end.

Finish well,

Steadfast.

 

We need not burst across a finish line, break the tape.

Just stay. Stay in trust; stay under test.

The happy man keeps faith to final heartbeat,

Outlasting affliction in love for Him who outlasted death itself,

Who loved us first, loves us still, loves us through.

The crown of life will glow with bone-rejoicing, breath-stealing pearls

Produced by the rubble of our buried hopes.

 

He who loved us first will love us to the end,

Adorning those who love Him back with life and love eternal,

And the agony of decades will seem as heavy and prolonged as a single snowflake

Alongside the glory Christ has won for, with, and in us.

 

Blessed be Christ, the steadfast under trial,

Who completes His suffering by suffering in ours,

Who transforms our suffering by suffering with us,

Who sanctifies our suffering by His presence,

Who sustains our suffering with His promises.

How happy the person who stays beneath the load appointed

Because Christ abides there too.

Dear Me Letter

In response to Ann Voskamp's "Dear Me Letter" post and challenge

Dear me,

Above all, remember God is faithful. His mercies are new every morning, and His compassions never fail. He is faithful, and His faithfulness is great. He is good and kind, trustworthy and true.

You listened to a writer recently who quoted another writer, who said, "Every writer only has one theme, and mine is love." That got you thinking, what is your one theme?

What you're realizing and don't really want to accept is that your theme is brokenness, or perhaps better, the sufficiency of God's grace in brokenness. Your imagination keeps returning to the idea of the kintsugi Christian, a broken person mended with gold, more beautiful after the breaking than before. It is a beautiful idea, but the cost of such a testimony frightens you. So much brokenness already. So many losses. Is that to be the pattern always? If His golden beauty in the soul's dark night is the theme of your song, is breaking and mending, breaking and mending, breaking and mending to be the rhythm of all the days of your weary Shadowlands pilgrimage?

I don't know that. Loss is engraved so indelibly in this postlapsarian life, as it was on our Savior's (and is even now in ascended, nail-scarred glory); such a rhythm is a distinct possibility.

But I know this: if such is your calling, your testimony, God will be faithful in it. He will unfold joys and beauties in the brokenness that would not be yours otherwise. The grace and courage and strength will be there when you need it, though likely not before. The fearful imaginings of impending losses, realized in full, omit the imaginings of the sweet presence of God in their midst.

What's more, consider the outcome of such breaking and mending, breaking and mending, breaking and mending. Every cycle will make you more of gold and less of clay. Every breaking will cause His light and glory to shine through you more brightly, until your journey is complete and you are like Him when you see Him face to face.

Courage, dear heart. Life is hard. There will be more death-shadowed valleys before the end. But Christ is worthy. He is worthy, and He is with you. You will never be alone or abandoned by Him.

Dive ever deeper into His presence in His Word, and soar ever higher into His presence in prayer. If brokenness is to be your theme, let Him be your song in the house of your pilgrimage.

You can trust God with this. 

cm

#DearMeLetter #SummerOfJournalling

Cocoons, Chronic Illness, and FoNo

 

The doctor on the screen seemed to proclaim pandemic freedom

In the Pax Coronavax Mask De-Mandate of 2021.

Vaccination gives you wings

To soar beyond covidian quaran-time.

The jubilation among immune-normal folk coursed palpably,

With electric enthusiasm across airwaves and social media.

At last!

Smiles are back,

And those unsightly mask indentations?

Archived with the memes on toilet paper shortages

And recipes for homemade hand sanitizer.

 

The joy was not unmixed, however.

Some of us found ourselves as deflated as elated.

Ten million Americans fell through the loophole

Referring the immunocompromised to their physicians.

Without normal (or any) immune response to vaccination,

Our wings are still waiting to emerge.

We abide in the cocoons of our homes

And the small community of healthy family and friends

Enfolding us in the wings of their immune response.

 

Without innate protection

Or shielding by the wider community,

The glimmer of hope of attending church in person,

Or congregational singing,

Or seeing a movie in a theater,

Or date-night dining (even on a restaurant patio)

Receded again over the horizon

Into the unknown future.

 

The peculiar truth that most everyone

With chronic illness, disability, or cancer will understand,

And healthy people may doubt,

Is that for millions of us

The world opened up

When it closed down.

For the first time, all worship

Went online,

And we were truly worshiping with our church

And family, united in our mutual geographic separation.

Bible studies and conferences, too,

Education from kindergarten to doctoral seminars,

Book launch events, writing conferences, movie premieres--

All those elusive, inaccessible commonplaces from the healthy world

Opened accessible doors (rather, windows) to us

Whose geography is boundaried less by lines on a map

Than by our diagnoses and disability.

The able and disabled worlds commingled,

A flash of silver lining in the terrible storm thundering around us all.

 

Now healthy people are celebrating the termination of worship live streams[1],

Kicking video conferences and virtual Bible studies to the curb,

Rejoicing at returning to travel and festive celebrations:

Baptisms, graduations, ordinations,

Marriages and memorials,

Bucket-list vacations.

 

I celebrate your celebrations,

Rejoice with your rejoicing.

 

Yet I also grieve.

I grieve the loss of solidarity and access

As the able world takes flight and soars away.

As you wing your way back to normal,

Remember us who lament our necessary absence

From the camera rolls and photo albums

Of even those very dear to us?

As you leave your quarantine chrysalides behind,

Remember how confinement felt,

And let that remembrance beget compassion

For those for whom it persists?

Consider leaving the window of remote access cracked open

For our disabled, homebound world

To connect with your wingèd wanderings, your worship,

Your wonder at a world made novel by long confinement?

Remember how your isolation felt for 12, 15, 18 months,

And how worship live stream,

Zoom birthday parties,

Skype Bible studies were manna to you

In the wilderness of quaran-time?

 

No one craves manna meals forever,

But they are waybread and sustenance

Through the barren places

On the way to the land of promises fulfilled.

 

Until the pandemic is over

Or herd immunity achieved,

Or some immune booster devised to bolster

The trigger-happy immune systems with terrible aim

Like mine,

For which the least bad treatments remove bullets from the chamber of my defenses--

Until then, millions of us high-risk, immunocompromised patients

Are still questing for contentment,

Joy,

Peace,

Within our four walls

And masks

And well-scrubbed, alcohol-parched hands,

Grateful for virtual opportunities for community,

Worshipping from home in the chair or bed we can tolerate,

Taking comfort in some vaccine protection

When we leave our sheltering cocoons

For frequent medical appointments, but

Loving most of our people from afar;

Missing marriages and memorials,

Baptisms, graduations, ordinations,

Unless streamed;

Cherishing the hugs of the few who crawl under our burdens

By reinforcing the walls of our cocoons

With their own vaccinations, masks, clean hands,

And sacrificial steadfastness in covidian quarantine,

Though for their own sake they could spread their wings and soar again.

 

But, truly, as the healthy and able emerge from their cocoons

And launch themselves back into pre-pandemic life,

The fellowship of the suffering

Find ourselves struggling with some FoNo:

Not fear of missing out (yet some of that too),

But Fear of Normal.

Fear of being left behind by Normal.

 

I’m asking for a friend,                                                                                                                                            

And another,

And another,

And another,

And a few more beyond that,

But also for myself.

As your world reopens,

As your protection bursts your cocoon and gives you wings,

Please don’t forget to remember us

You’ve left behind.

 

6/25/21

___________________________________________________________

Sources:

*Private patient portal conversation with my rheumatologist

*”It Isn’t Over for Us” USA Today article

*CDC guidelines for immunocompromised patients after vaccination

*American College of Rheumatology clinical guidelines regarding COVID-19 vaccination

*The highlight reel of the above guidelines

*Excellent list of patient-focused resources from the American College of Rheumatology

*RA and COVID risk

*methotrexate and vaccine response

*what immunocompromised individuals should know after vaccination

*what immunocompromised individuals can do after vaccination

---

[1] for some churches

Exile. {A Poem}

 

Exiled—

To Babylon—

Daniel glimpsed the eternal kingdom,

Ancient of Days,

In the collapse of his own.

Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah encountered

Christ before Bethlehem

In the furnace of sevenfold heat.

Ezekiel beheld shekinah glory of God

And the Temple yet to be

From the banks of the Chebar canal.

 

Exiled—

To Patmos—

Excluded from the gathering of the church,

Extracted from home and kin,

John witnessed the worship of multitudes.

The glory of God invaded his exile

With visions of the new Jerusalem,

The Lamb its light and temple,

Where no more salty sea can separate,

Where no more salty tears are shed.

 

Exiled, they encountered their God.

Exiled from earthly home, they glimpsed the heavenly.

Exiled, they dwelt enfolded in God’s wings,

Enclosed in His embrace.

 

Shall I go on?

Abraham, Joseph, Moses,

Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther—

And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself—

All testify from the great cloud of witnesses

To God’s faithfulness

In the land of their sojourn.

 

Exiled—not from home

But to home—

Exiled from society

To disorienting, familiar walls,

Same places,  new purposes;

New rhythms, routines, habits, hardships;

New calendar—

Time stretching, contracting, collapsing in on itself.

 

In exile idols topple;

Sins bubble over.

Dross rises in the heat of tribulation,

In the crucible of confinement.

 

In exile, will we encounter God?

In exile, will we long for heavenly Home?

In exile, will we rest enfolded in His wings,

Enclosed in His embrace?

Or will we rebel like the Israelites

When God said, “Yield: trust me,”

And they fled to Egypt for help.

We will not emerge unchanged in any choice.

(No caterpillar ever emerged from a chrysalis.)

 

And emerge we will.

Likely not after seventy years

Or four hundred thirty, 

As Israel did,

But in God’s time He will again 

Extrude us into formerly familiar

Rhythms, routines, habits, hardships.

What will we carry with us out of exile?

Dross or gold?

Bitterness or the blessing

Of an encounter with the glorious God?

 

God’s exilic faithfulness

Could engender

Enduring fruitfulness

To the transformation

Of untold post-exilic generations.

The Worst That Could Happen {A Poem}

 

What's the worst that could happen

If you set aside your spade,

Paused from cultivating the garden of your discontent,

Lopping off roses and counting thorns,

Planting what-ifs,

Blanketing if-onlys like mulch,

Harvesting heartache?

What's the worst that could happen

If you sowed your sorrows,

Buried shards of shattered heart,

Watered them with surrendered tears,

Offering your brokenness

That the God of resurrection

May transfigure it,

Blooming forth beauty of holiness

And joy from pain?

What's the worst that could happen

If you dared to believe

That God is cultivating--

Through the very desolation that you dread--

A glorious harvest beyond

Everything you thought you wanted?

What's the worst that could happen

If you yielded your crushed and bruised spirit

To the True Gardener

And dared to abide in hope

Of abundant and eternal fruit?

"All Things Well" {Greatest Hits}

Here is another top 5 post from my almost-decade of blogging here. May the Lord bless it to your spirit. Grace and peace to you in Jesus,

tinuviel

From time to time, usually when my pain spikes and I can't pinpoint any particular misbehavior on my part which caused it, the what ifs attack. What if the doctor has misdiagnosed my pain? What if the long diagnostic delay has made this permanent? What if the medicines are more harm than help?

A friend and new breast cancer survivor tells me she thinks these anxieties come with the territory of prolonged or chronic illness. For her, every new twinge could be the first warning that the cancer has returned. For both of us, some of these questions are legitimate areas of further medical investigation.

For that reason, two weeks ago I sought a second opinion on a key aspect of my care. Our conversation and the wide variety of tests ordered seem to corroborate some of my concerns, particularly the one about the accuracy of a key element of my medical history.

This raises a new sort of what if, one I had swept under the rug of my thoughts until now. Really, I don't know anything for certain until all the test results are in and the doctor herself interprets them to me. It is still in the realm of possibility, however, that the primary diagnosis which has guided medical decisions for a decade will be revised or even replaced.

That said, I do already know that my what ifs are generally neither helpful nor faithful. If God is sovereign and loving, as the Bible teaches and I believe, no illness or physician error, if that should prove the case, can touch me without His permission. If He has permitted difficulty, it is for my good, for the building up of the body of Christ, and for His glory. He is trustworthy.

Sometimes when the what ifs attack, testimony from someone who has already walked a similar path can penetrate my troubled emotions better than abstract truth. The dominance of narrative in the Spirit-breathed Scriptures makes me think God designed us this way. One day recently, American hymnist Fanny Crosby's witness out of her lifelong blindness provided the help I needed.

Before Fanny Crosby had reached two months of age, a common cold resulted in permanent blindness when a newcomer to the town treated her in the stead of the regular family physician, who was unavailable at the time. The stranger turned out to be an impostor without any medical training whatever and left town, never to be heard from again.

Concerning this tragedy, Miss Crosby wrote, "In more than eighty-five years, I have not for a moment felt a spark of resentment against him, for I have always believed from my youth up that the good Lord, in His infinite mercy, by this means consecrated me to the work that I am still permitted to do" (Smith and Carlson, Favorite Women Hymn Writers, 32).

What work was that? Teaching at a school for the blind in New York City, becoming the first woman to speak before Congress, befriending Presidents, writing a prodigious quantity of poems and later hymns, and serving the poor. "Indefatigable" comes to mind when I read of her life.

On another note, also from Miss Crosby, these words on prayer also strengthened feeble knees to persist in intercession whether or not I can see any results:

In one of her last messages, she said, "God will answer your prayers better than you think. Of course, one will not always get exactly what he has asked for. . . .  We all have sorrows and disappointments, but one must never forget that, if commended to God, they will issue in good. . . .  His own solution is far better than any we could conceive" (Ibid., 37). 

One of my favorites of her very many hymns is the following one on God's guidance throughout our lives. For some reason, I have never sung it in church that I recall but made its acquaintance instead through the Rich Mullins recording from The World As Best As I Remember It, Vol. 2. (See below for a link to listen on YouTube.) Whether the hymn is new or familiar to you, I pray that you find Miss Crosby's words still speak to your particular need and what ifs today. Jesus doeth all things well, friend. Let's remember how He has done so for us and share our stories with each other.

All the way my Savior leads me;
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercy,
Who through life has been my Guide?
Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,
Here by faith in Him to dwell!
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well;
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well.

All the way my Savior leads me,
Cheers each winding path I tread;
Gives me grace for every trial,
Feeds me with the living Bread.
Though my weary steps may falter,
And my soul athirst may be,
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! A spring of joy I see;
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! A spring of joy I see.

All the way my Savior leads me
O the fullness of His love!
Perfect rest to me is promised
In my Father’s house above.
When my spirit, clothed immortal,
Wings its flight to realms of day
This my song through endless ages—
Jesus led me all the way;
This my song through endless ages—
Jesus led me all the way.

Endure: 5-Minute Friday

Endure:

The very word evokes

Teeth gritted in determination,

Toughing it out.

I don't even need to unclench my jaw

To spit out the word.

Hupomeno, though:

The Bible word begins with an exhale,

Tells a different story--

To remain under,

To stay and not flee,

To hold fast and not retreat,

To dwell under the yoke with Christ

And not to look for shortcuts,

Escape routes.

Will I pitch my tent

In the barren waste of wilderness

Because the pillar of Shekinah glory fire

Hovers overhead

And warms the night?

Will I step into the raging furnace

And let the Fourth Man

Loose my bonds

And companion me there?

Will I abide in the fiery trials

Without numbing,

With surrender

And submission,

For the sake of knowing better

The fellowship of His sufferings?

Will I pray,

"Thy will be done,"

Though it cost me bloody sweat

And a cross of pain,

Rejection,

Derision?

Will I trust Him enough

To wait

And stay

And listen

And watch for His appearing?

Lord Jesus,

Make a way out of the desert,

Flames,

Gethsemane,

Quickly, if You will;

And grant me the courage to endure

With patience

And hope

Until You show Yourself strong

For those whose hearts are completely Yours.

Remember {A Poem}

(Response to Psalms 77 & 78)

Remember,  O my soul,  lest you forget: 

Remember God's promises. 

Remember His works.

In the relentless, protracted unanswered prayers, 

Strengthen weak knees

With the memory of answers in your past. 

When pain strikes your soul with amnesia, 

Remember the victories of others.

Read, and remember:

The forty years of manna,

The water from a rock--

Twice--

Elijah's widow's flour and oil,

Daniel's bed amid the lions, 

His friends' fourth man in the furnace, 

Peter's angelic locksmith,

Lazarus' vacant tomb.

Remember Corrie's vitamin bottle, 

Darlene's ninety-nine bananas,

The thousand unlikely eucatastrophes

You've heard and read and lived. 

Remember, O my soul, lest you forget; 

Lest you forget, remember. 

The active, conscious remembrance of God's past faithfulness

Fuels your perseverance in present faith.

The Gift Nobody Wants

Before me rests a package, a gift.

The tag clearly reads my name,

But what a gift:

Wrapped in sandpaper,

Encrusted with glittering bits of broken glass,

Bound carefully with a bow of thorns and brambles.

Who wants to open such a gift?

Yet the tag reads just as clearly,

“From your heavenly Father.”

He is good;

He does good.

Will I trust Him enough to accept the abrasions, the lacerations,

The wounds this gift will cost?

Or will I refuse, rebel, reject?

Trust Me, He says.

The treasure is worth the pain,

More than worth it.

The momentary, light affliction

Of opening your gift

Is opening to you an eternal weight of glory

As far beyond comparison with the pain

As hyperbole times hyperbole.

Knowing Christ in the power of His resurrection

Requires learning to know Him in communion with His suffering,

Yet the knowledge gained surpasses the preciousness

Of a thousand-carat diamond,

A hundred-pound pearl.

He took the sharpest thorns,

The roughest edges,

The bloodiest brambles.

Will I trust Him by receiving His gift?

If there’s any other way to claim the treasure, Lord,

Rewrap it in soft leather,

In satin ribbon.

Yet—

If not,

Thy will be done.

“These little troubles (which are really so transitory) are winning for us a permanent, glorious and solid reward out of all proportion to our pain. For we are looking all the time not at the visible things but at the invisible. The visible things are transitory: it is the invisible things that are really permanent” (2 Cor. 4:17-18, J.B. Phillips New Testament).

Perseverance

Sing, heart within me, though no shout ascendeth,
No trumpet soundeth on this battlefield.
Yet sing, my heart, O sing the Grace that lendeth
Courage to stand thy ground and not to yield.

Not in me, Lord, Thou knowest, was there ever
Strength to endure, or any fortitude.
Now in the silence, come--for I would never
Miss Thy bright Presence, walk in solitude.

Broken my sword--what use a weapon broken?
Yet with that broken blade till set of sun
I fain would fight. O blessed be the token--
The secret token saith: Fight on! Fight on!
~Amy Carmichael, Mountain Breezes

Deeper Roots

We lost a tree this week. It was our tall, slim poplar, the one which served as temporary home to Lucy the stray parakeet in April.

Actually, it had been visibly ailing for a few weeks, but towards the end of last week the decline accelerated and we called an arborist to diagnose the problem. It looked like November, the poplar's yellow brown leaves the size of salad plates blanketing the lawn, dwindling numbers clinging to branches.

The tree expert dug around the base, scraped into the bark and roots, and pronounced his verdict: root rot.

We had made two mistakes: planting the tree too deep in the ground, so that the soil and mulch smothered the root flare, and choosing the wrong tree in the first place. This kind of poplar, similar to a cottonwood, grows quickly here in north Texas. It sends its energy more into growth of the tree upward than to growth of the root system downward and outward. It's also a soft, porous wood. Both factors leave it with weak defenses against the stresses of drought, hail, high winds, and floods, all of which we have experienced in its short life.

When hail stripped the first set of leaves off the tree in March, the rotting roots meant the poplar had to draw on stored energy in each cell of the tree to generate new leaves and sustain its life until the new leaves could produce their own energy from sunshine and chlorophyll. When another hail storm and flooding rains succeeded the March storm, the tree's demise was not only assured but sped along. Without deep, strong roots to anchor the tall trunk in the earth, a delay in having it taken down would only increase the likelihood of failure, which could only mean significant property damage for us or our neighbors.

Consequently, Thursday the team of a climber and a chipper arrived to strip the once-beautiful poplar of her branches, bottom to top, and then chop apart the trunk section by section from the top down.

The arborist told me, "It's always sad to lose a tree, but if you wanted to look on the bright side, this is your opportunity to replace it with something better." We asked for his recommendations, and one on his short list, given the other trees in the immediate area, was a Chinkapin white oak. In contrast to the poplar we lost, this oak is slow growing vertically but puts out deep, extensive roots. It's resistant to the oak wilt that can kill other oaks quickly here, and it's a hard wood, making it more resistant to rot. We have now learned the hard way about planting at the proper depth to leave the root flare above the soil line.

All that remains. The utility cables are too close to have the stump ground.

This story is not just a cautionary tale about gardening or the care and feeding of trees, however. The whole event has me thinking about roots more generally and metaphorically. The prophet Jeremiah wrote about trees, roots, and extreme weather in the seventeenth chapter of the book named for him:

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
(Jeremiah 17:7-8 ESV)

The six years of this blog's existence have indeed been a season of heat and drought. My soul has had to sink deeper roots in the Lord and His grace to survive, and by God's grace I'm still here, still fighting with every new challenge to look up and say, "I trust You. Your way is better. I don't like this, but I trust that you know what I need more than I do. Don't let this pain be wasted. Use it for Your glory, my good, and the growth of your kingdom."

Verdant leaves and fruitfulness are not for me to assess. Often I still do fear and suffer anxiety. My ongoing chronic pain and limitations cost others at least as much as they do me, and that adds sorrow to sorrow. Not one of the hardships my loved ones face is something I can fix or even mitigate.

The arborist's words about the oak comfort me in this. The slowness or even seeming lack of visible progress and growth may mean that the energy is going into my root system, going deeper into the Lord to find the nourishment only He can give. In time, someday, this particular season of affliction will end, and that growth below the surface will not be in vain. It may make me more resilient in the next season of drought and scorching heat, more fruitful regardless of circumstance. Even if the only benefit is increased knowledge of God and Christ, both in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, it will be worth the affliction that brought it about. Our Lord is growing us into sequoias, not wildflowers, which means we need His enduring grace so we can endure.

Remembering the first season of brokenness in my Christian life, I recognize that I didn't know at the time the growth that was underway, but hindsight shows me that I learned more of the Lord and His Word during that season than I did in my year of seminary (as valuable as that was). I wouldn't take a million dollars to live that ordeal over again, but I wouldn't trade a million dollars for what it gave me.

If you are in a season of affliction right now, I pray these musings encourage you and give you hope. May the Lord make us fruitful in the land of our affliction. May He cultivate in us a trust in His good, faithful, true person that will withstand whatever drought, storm, heat, or ice His providence decrees. May He draw our roots deeper and deeper into Himself through His Son, His Word, worship, and prayer. May all our spiritual seasons bring glory to His name, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

***************************

Thank you, crumbles, for gracing me with your time, friendship, and prayers for the last six years. You are a blessing!

"With Blazing Hope"

"Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial,

for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life,

which God has promised to those who love him" (James 1:12, ESV).

Sometimes a fairly routine definition check yields buried treasure. Such was the case this morning when I checked the Greek word behind "remains steadfast" (transliterated to our alphabet, hupomeno). Its most basic meaning is "to endure. to stay under [an affliction or load]." One of my favorite Greek tools fleshed out the sense this way:

It is not the patience which can sit down and bow its head and let things descend upon it and passively endure until the storm is passed. It is the spirit which can bear things, not simply w. resignation, but w. blazing hope (Reinecker/Rogers, James 1:12).

May God grant us in grace to remain steadfast in this triumphant way, "with blazing hope."