kindled by pain, risking for hope

Interesting title right?  I thought so.  :)

I was so sick with the stomach flu for about 38 hours (Monday night through Wednesday morning) and could not keep food down at all.  I was getting over a cold.  I quit my job as a nanny.  I'm job searching again.  I'm waiting to hear back from seminary.  We're still looking for one more housemate.  I was asking myself earlier this week where the joy in life was.

Now that is so easy to answer!  The joy comes after the pain.  Why must we go through so much, for lack of better words, bad stuff?  I'm eternally grateful now for God and I place my trust in Him always.  I hate pain.  It's one of few things I'll say I hate.  But only in the moment.  The outcome of pain is happiness and gratitude.  Think about it...  Have you ever broken a bone?  Say you broke a leg.  OUCH!  When healed, "Hallelujah and thank you Jesus!"  I can use my leg again.  I've never broken my leg, but I did break my face (fractured my orbital (the bone over your eye, near your eyebrow) in a few places.  So happy when I was able to move my face without it being painful and so grateful.  I take things for granted.  I take my life for granted.  I take food for granted.  Each morning I wake up I take for granted.  I take God's love for granted.

You can be kindled by illness.  Kindled by pain.  The outcome of pain that is.  Thank you Lord that you have brought pain into this life in order for us to be grateful and stop taking life for granted.  When something significant is lost, and then given back again, it is like being forgiven and blessed twice.  A second chance became my life.  Life is full of second chances and chances to get it right.  We will always get some stuff wrong, but we will learn most through our failures.  It's through our failures that we will get stuff right.  We learn from our mistakes.

I'm a cautious person by nature and I don't take many risks, though I'm learning that I grow most from taking them.  Working at camp was outside of my comfort zone.  It ended up being one of the best experiences of my life.  When you risk stepping out of your comfort zone it may be a blissful reward (as camp was in my life) or regrettably shocking (like moving to Denver my first year of college).  A story for another time.

God's promise to love us and give us hope and a future revives my soul's thirst for direction.

Thank you God for my life and help me to grow in You always.  Help me to take risks.  Through these risks help me to gain hope.  Help me to be kindled by pain and not tainted, disgruntled nor cynical towards it.

I put my faith, hope, and trust in the Lord always.  Lord, as I learned in the Bible Study tonight from Hebrews, help me to boast in Your hope... forever.  Amen.

This is a fragmented, unpolished, and unrevised post... but I like it that way for now.  Comments?