“Can we just be honest? Life is brutal.
There is just enough goodness to rouse our hearts with expectation, and plenty enough sadness to cut us back down. When the cutting down exceeds the rising up, you wonder if you shouldn’t just stay down.”
John Eldredge (All Things New)
- Reflection: Just over five weeks ago my older brother Dan was in a near fatal car accident. To be completely honest, I’ve been cut down by it in ways I don’t understand. I am emotionally raw and sensing the pain of others in real ways beyond any type of empathy of my past. I read about tragedies in the news and begin to weep over the suffering of strangers. The realization of personal brutality in this life has become all too real and common to me over this past month. It’s as if this accident opened my eyes and heart in new ways to feel suffering differently. I’m not sure what good will come of this season, if any. My definition and understanding of “good”, “hope”, and “faithfulness” are currently surrounded by scaffolding and under construction. Maybe sometimes suffering is like a kiln that brings the clay strength and beauty. If so, I’d rather stay weak and ugly these days.
- Language I love: “Bye for now” has been the routine salutation given by my mother for years to each of her kids. It helps me lean into a future appointment with her. I love the way it crosses between here and the next for us.
- Be Visionary: What you envision of the future has great impact on our behavior today. If you’re reading this wishing you could live today or tomorrow differently then maybe what you need is a clearer view of what your life could look like 5 or 10 years from now. Call yourself forward standing in that reality rather than trying to climb the cliff of ambiguity without a picture of the path. I think this is all the more important of a practice during seasons of suffering. Our confident expectation of a new and better future must be big enough to carry us through the brutality of life.
- Resource that could change you: FOCUS ON THIS episode #128 – Breaking Free From Procrastination