“Mother’s Day can be a tough day for many people…
Let us minister wisely toward each other… Just because something is true doesn’t make it helpful…
This is not about music necessarily; it’s about false cheeriness that glosses over very real pain… It abandons the heavy hearted to bear the weight of the pain alone… it doesn’t seek to acknowledge or understand their pain…
It drives people to hypocrisy, pretending all is well when it is not… the idea that we have to be happy all the time is an impossible standard…
Fake happiness is exhausting. It also robs us of truly feeling, and because we’re not allowed to truly feel we don’t truly heal…
That being said we miss it sometimes… we need to be gracious with each other when we do…
If you’re waiting on perfection to minister you’ll never get out their… the beauty of God is that He uses us in our unfinished states… God calls imperfect people to minister to imperfect people…
God loves real people with all our complexities, personality flaws, and issues, the Bible is realistic about human suffering and doesn’t pretend it’s always tied up with a neat bow on top…
Paul here doesn’t say this is all completed within our lifetime… not everything turns out “right” not everything makes sense within our lifetime…
Hope doesn’t negate pain… Faith is not an insurance policy against suffering…
Look at Paul’s thorn in the flesh… God redeems his pain, gives him a better understanding of grace through it… it was Paul’s pain that allowed him to share God’s grace and love more empathically…
Feeling alone is never so sharp as when we’re suffering… one of the greatest gifts we can offer others as believers is presence and especially in times of suffering…
Jesus expressed His great love for us in that He didn’t send an angel in His place, but God Himself became fully human, and endured all our pain, weakness and suffering… all of which He walked into with eyes wide open… because He loves us and wants to truly comfort us…
God is seen in our love for one another…”