Through

Words don't come easy to describe the week that has passed.  It was so ordinary, and yet exceptional at the same time.  I look back and see troubled hours, tears, difficulty, and disappointments.  I look back and see victories, and joy, and beauty in many places. There have been many weeks that have disappeared into my history that I have not looked back and examined.  When that has happened, I think I have lost something.  Our personal histories are important to our future.

How would you describe your week?  Will you let it disappear into the past without looking back, without remembering the good times and the bad?  Your week, or month, or year, or entire life is witness to the strength you have found to survive and to go on.

Someone asked, just yesterday, how to have hope when circumstances of life seem hopeless, when pain is the predominant feeling, and when all your hours are under a cloud of despair or grief.  The answer, I believe, though it seems much too simple, is God.  When you take time to look back, you will know that God was there with you.  He may have taken some of your pain, or He may have let you go through it, but know this--He was there.

I have said times before that one of my favorite words is "through".  In my life, I have witnessed trouble and experienced trouble, but those troubles either are or will someday be in the past.  We have gotten through.  Because of that, we can know that whatever comes next, we will get through also.  If there is joy, embrace it, celebrate it.  If there is pain, we can embrace that also, because it will not last forever, and soon we will get through.