“You’re made to do hard and holy things
— because there’s no other way to get to the happy and holy things.”
Ann Voskamp
This week my mind has been swaying back and forth, between the quote above, and a line in a song. Both quotes have a common thread … tough stuff.
Can we really experience, can we really understand happiness, if we have not experienced tough stuff?
For me, to answer that I just need to look at our three kids. Three miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy, and the sorrow that accompanied each, make the life I get to share with my three kids so much sweeter. I know how hard and holy those times were … and make me understand the happy and holy times today.
“Earth has no sorrow,
that heaven can’t heal.”
Every one of us knows what sorrow is, knows what it feels like, knows the darkness that accompanies it, as though the goal of the sorrow were to envelope us, like a dark cloak. John 16:33 reminds us that sorrow is to be expected, but …
“Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.
But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
There is rest for the weary, for those who are in the midst of tough stuff, that shakes us to the core. But even the tough stuff is holy, and can bring us to the healing of heaven.
itsawonderfilledlife 