Running errands with the leaves rustling beneath my feet, the sun lighting up the reds, oranges, yellows, browns and muted greens and the crushing heat of summer gone until next year--it is an easy day to embrace a cheerful heart and lay deeper sorrows aside for a bit.
It is very much harder to embrace that cheerful thing when thoughts of an incarcerated loved one intrudes and decidedly harder still on the days we have to deal with the emotions of the incarcerated person, the financial realities for my self and extended family, or wade through hours of automated phone systems.
But to a certain extent we have a choice to live in the wretchedness, angry that others seem to have an easier life, or we can live with a cheerful heart and only step into the wretchedness to the extent that it must be managed. I am certainly not saying this is easy, but I am saying that considering how that might work is worthwhile.
If you have trouble with feeling like there is nothing in your life for which you can feel joy I suggest reading a short but powerful book called, Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel. Once I read that, I had a much easier time being honest and realistic about the challenges I faced. I don't even know how I came to read it, referenced in another book I was reading maybe, but I do know I have given my children copies of this because being stuck in the "poor me" attitude is never helpful in the long term.
So if you have found yourself clutching your wretchedness lately, ask God to heal your heart and let you see the feast that is peace in the midst of chaos, rather than only the absence of war.
All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast. Proverbs 15:15 NIV
It is very much harder to embrace that cheerful thing when thoughts of an incarcerated loved one intrudes and decidedly harder still on the days we have to deal with the emotions of the incarcerated person, the financial realities for my self and extended family, or wade through hours of automated phone systems.
But to a certain extent we have a choice to live in the wretchedness, angry that others seem to have an easier life, or we can live with a cheerful heart and only step into the wretchedness to the extent that it must be managed. I am certainly not saying this is easy, but I am saying that considering how that might work is worthwhile.
If you have trouble with feeling like there is nothing in your life for which you can feel joy I suggest reading a short but powerful book called, Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel. Once I read that, I had a much easier time being honest and realistic about the challenges I faced. I don't even know how I came to read it, referenced in another book I was reading maybe, but I do know I have given my children copies of this because being stuck in the "poor me" attitude is never helpful in the long term.
So if you have found yourself clutching your wretchedness lately, ask God to heal your heart and let you see the feast that is peace in the midst of chaos, rather than only the absence of war.
All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast. Proverbs 15:15 NIV
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