Produce Perseverance

While “cleaning” today I found this following message, a response to a text message or perhaps an email, that I had copied and saved in the “notes” on my phone. I don’t remember who it was originally written to, or if I even sent it, but I have people in my life that it fits. Finding it now, more than a year after it was originally written, I want to make these words available. I want to point out this truth, again. 

 “No argument from me that some things are just bad. And many of them we never get to see any good come from. Perhaps no good does ever come from them, if no one is asking God for it? Rom 8:28 adds at the end “for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes”. If no one is seeking the good, perhaps it is just completely bad? I don’t pretend to know the answer to that. You have seen a lot more bad than I have my friend. And very different bad.

 I do think though that joy is a choice. And it is nothing like happiness. No, a tree cannot choose it’s fruit, but the amount of sun it soaks up, reaching out its branches with hope, and the amount of rain it reaches out for, digging those roots deeper into the unforgiving soil around it... those things make the fruit stronger, and bigger, and sweeter. The tree is planted, and it is what it is... but it gets to choose whether it shrivels up or reaches out. 

 And just because it chooses one thing one day, doesn’t mean it doesn’t get to/have to choose again, the next day, and the next, over and over, choosing. 

 Some days I don’t choose to look for the good. Some days, in all honesty, I curl up and ask God to please let me die. When I have had blood sugar readings of 400 and 45 in the same day. When I have had 4 seizures in 12 hours time. When I have thrown up, for no diagnosable reason, over and over- sometimes I forget to look for the good. I forget to seek joy, when happiness seems so far away. I am just tired. 

 But Joy, not happiness, is always there. Always.”

JOY is strong here today. 

 There is nothing new on me, medically. 

 There is nothing new on selling the house, Andy getting a new job, or moving closer to our parents.

 There is nothing new on my mom’s broken body, the lack of medical equipment at the hospital in Kenya my BIL works at, (please go read that one) or the angst people carry about the world in general. 

 Yet, JOY is a choice and I am choosing it. 

 Please, join me in choosing it. 

 I am so glad to have found that old message, written in a time of pain, reminding me that those very trials faced have already produced perseverance. 

Grow my friends. Grow those roots down deep. Soak up the rainwater, even when they sometimes seem to be bigger rain drops than you think you can handle. Grow those branches strong, able to handle the wind. Grow those leaves full and thick, able to offer shade to those around you who are having a hard day. 

 Be blessed as you grow my friends!