grasp

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We live in a fairy world where we think everything should come easily, where things stay calm, no ripples on the water, no contest we can't win, nothing we can put our hand to that doesn't turn out just right.  But this is not the truth of where we stand.  This world is hard.  Relationships are messy.  People grow old and weary or sick.  It infects each one of us.  Nothing we do can protect us from the wear of this earth. 

Yet there is such beauty in this place; love and laughter, kindness and hope, joy and excitement. But I cannot have one without the other and so I dance between the two. Sometimes the steps falling into place, one emotion closely behind the other. Other times the separation of the two so vast I cannot see their connection. It's delightful and ugly in the same instance.  I carry the promise of new life in a body that daily is wearing down, the beauty of God working through the brokenness of me.

All of this is for the good.  He is beautifully confusing yet other times completely within my grasp.  A puzzle that unfolds and becomes clearer the deeper I trust, the longer I hold on, as I march through the mountains and valleys. He is a God who is actively transforming, reshaping, redeeming, refreshing, restoring. 


Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. 
You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. 
So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. 
Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, 
not deficient in any way.
James 1:2-4


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