that which makes you stronger....

Sometimes we just don't know what is in store for us, but we must trust that there is a plan.

We've certainly had our trials over the last year of our life together, J and I.  I hate to add it all up, but suffice it to say, in less than one year of marriage, we've dealt with what most folks who have been married for 20 years deal with: septic back ups, well pumps and hot water heaters just up and quitting, aging parents, accidental near-dismemberment, trees falling on various structures, water line breaks, just to name a few. 

 

Our stable, July 2009

E's Trailer, October 25, 2010

All in all, though, we're doing okay.  Financial challenges, house of worship challenges, job challenges.  There remains one constant through it all.  The Lord has seen us through each of these.  Struggle can make you stronger.  But it's what you do with that new found strength is what is important.  Sometimes you have no idea why something happened, until you have the opportunity to be blessed by helping someone else through their own trials. 

Praise be the the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.  For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.  If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.  And our hope for you  is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.   2 Corinthians 1: 3-7


Help someone else.  Say a kind word.   Let someone into the line of traffic.  Feed a meter.  I think it was Maya Angelou who said (and this is totally paraphrased) that people may not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel.  Make the committment today to drop off a meal to an unexpecting neighbor, send a note of thanks.  Here's one I got not too long ago. 

This note from a dear lovely girlfriend, made me cry. 

She had no idea what her note meant to me or how it made me feel.  I sent her a note of thanks in return.  No one does that anymore.  We should do that more, I think.     

So, now as J and I approach our first wedding anniversary, we recount the year.  We laugh at our "dramas" and look forward to what is to come.  However it may be, with each challenge, we must remember to place our trust in God and know that from all things, good will come, as that is His will.