Living Life for Christ Alone

"'...You are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed , and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.'" (Jesus to Martha in Luke 10:41-42) How complicated life can become!  At one moment, we are on a mountaintop and see everything clearly, and then as we wade into life's many deep waters, perspective can easily be replaced with foggy thinking.  Confession time: I found myself here this last week... It wasn't fun to have gone from such clarity to so much fog so easily.  The mountaintop of clarity was quickly replaced with a pit of sluggish mud that seemed to drag my feet down, down, down... away from simplicity, which had  been producing joy.  The worries Martha was experiencing are the types of worries I was starting to experience all. the. time.  Let's see... How did Jesus put it? "You are worried and troubled about many things."  Ugh. That's  SO  me.  How do I explain?  ...Well, ...

  "Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." (2 Corinthians 1:4) Comfort draws us to its source. And God's comfort is meant to draw us to Him. Maybe this is why comfort is something He does in all  tribulations we face. And maybe that is why comfort is something we can't keep to ourselves.  True comfort lifts our gaze far beyond our temporal experiences to our eternal reality. True comfort magnifies God in our hearts.  True comfort is heavenly, and it's a salve that truly heals.  Earthly comforts don't do this for us. They are far from lasting.  Well-meaning people encourage a pity party, which only lengthens the suffering and makes it more unbearable. Pity parties do nothing for anyone. Any comfort that turns my eyes inward will surely deepen whatever wound is there, for only God has the salve that heals. I can only make my wounds worse...

 "Blessed be... the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation..." -2 Corinthians 1:3-4 All  leaves nothing out.  Perhaps my greatest tribulation at the moment is a mere backache. Or perhaps the time comes when the backache seems like nothing next to extreme loss.  Perhaps the tribulation is a battle in the mind- perplexities, emotions that pull all different directions, confusing thoughts, lies... Or perhaps it is outward circumstances that have you confused.  Perhaps it's extreme difficulty. But more often than not, our tribulations come in small packages that on the outside don't appear very threatening, until we find ourselves overwhelmed afresh with our own inability to take another step.  Whatever the tribulation may be, in every one of them, Jesus draws near in order to comfort. Never will He speak words of condemnation to the soul in distress. His aim is to encourage -which is to infuse with courage - so tha...

I'm going to do some boasting on here. I'm really weak. Adulting, being a mother with two little precious toddlers 18 months apart in my care, having much on my plate -these things and more have helped me feel it. Almost daily, I find myself freshly aware that I do not have all the answers. I often feel the crushing weight of needing to make hundreds of micro decisions each day press in around me. The temptation to be discouraged before the day has even begun is real, because if I look too much at myself, I will see so much potential to fail. Don't get me wrong. I love my life. It's full, really full, in a lot of really good ways. But I am weak, and I am so very often conscious of it. There are days when I don't feel like I can take any more and would love a break. There are times when I want to retreat into a dark corner somewhere and throw a pity party. There are times when what is going on in my soul is not pretty. HOWEVER. It has been SO good for me. Let me expl...

 "We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely on God, who raises the dead." (2 Corinthians 1:8b-9) The saying that God will never give us more than we can endure is simply not true.  At times, we get to this place of complete overwhelm beyond what we can endure.  Why? Why would God allow that to happen to His children? Why would God make life -and even survival- impossible for us?  It's quite simple, really.  Overwhelm is when all the temporary fixes we depend on stop working. Overwhelm is when the truth of those temporary fixes sinks in; they are not really fixes at all. Overwhelm is when we can begin to realize we were made to depend on the unseen, eternal God. It is when we are forced to make a choice in response to our own instinct to survive as to who or what we will depend on. It is when we are g...