Sometimes life hands you lemons and you have to make lemonade but some days life hands you a steaming pile of dog poo and matter what clever cooking technique you apply no one will ever eat the dish you serve.
For many of us in the first world a trite saying is almost all we ever need to get over all the little hurdles life throws at us. But sometimes things are just hard and no amount of bootstrap pulling is going solve the problem. This week I felt like I was handed a pile of dog poo and asked to make a three course meal and no amount of "have you tried cooking it with..." is going to help.
Sometimes we need people to be around us and not cook the dog poo. To agree that tonight we all won't eat in solidarity we will suffer together because sometimes that is all you can do.
Sometimes in a world where pursing love, mercy and justice gets you crucified there is nothing you can do but be crucified. Be crucified and trust in resurrection.
A similar saying is “Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger” I recently heard Monica A Coleman answer this by saying, “sometimes yes but sometimes it makes you a weaker poorer empty shell of who you used to be.” Life can be harsh and it can be cruel and it can be damaging. For those of us in a more privileged background it can be easier to overcome adversity. For others it can be damaging and it is the damaged and the weak (the poor, the widow and the orphans – the phrase often used in scripture) that God calls us to walk alongside of.
For many of us in the first world a trite saying is almost all we ever need to get over all the little hurdles life throws at us. But sometimes things are just hard and no amount of bootstrap pulling is going solve the problem. This week I felt like I was handed a pile of dog poo and asked to make a three course meal and no amount of "have you tried cooking it with..." is going to help.
Sometimes we need people to be around us and not cook the dog poo. To agree that tonight we all won't eat in solidarity we will suffer together because sometimes that is all you can do.
Sometimes in a world where pursing love, mercy and justice gets you crucified there is nothing you can do but be crucified. Be crucified and trust in resurrection.
A similar saying is “Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger” I recently heard Monica A Coleman answer this by saying, “sometimes yes but sometimes it makes you a weaker poorer empty shell of who you used to be.” Life can be harsh and it can be cruel and it can be damaging. For those of us in a more privileged background it can be easier to overcome adversity. For others it can be damaging and it is the damaged and the weak (the poor, the widow and the orphans – the phrase often used in scripture) that God calls us to walk alongside of.
5 comments:
Yes, yes and yes
Chris,
I really loved your post today. Its like you looked into my soul and wrote for me what I can't in words in express myself, words that I've been searching for since Saturday.
I have really loved that twice this week you have come to our house, the house has been trashed, the kids have run wild, everybody is wearing everybody else's clothes and we scrap scraps out of the bottom of the freezer, or eat weird chinese just so we can be together. When there are no words and just a collective sigh, being in the room together can really be enough to help you through.
I've really had enough dog poo this year, and last year for that matter, and I think we need to plant more lemon trees, or start buying lemon trees for your new house near us.
Its actually really funny because I before I read your post had been discussing with mum (after sharing in your wheelbarrow of poo) that the saying "God will only give you what you can handle", really kind of actually is hard for me to hear, because in fact sometimes it feels like God gives you more than you can handle, and that feeling can last for a long time.
Thanks for the comments Carolyn. Really appreciate it. I bet no one ever yelled out to a Christian martyr "God will only give you what you can handle" while they were being lead to there execution. If we were to be really Christian or really Christ like we might cry out something like "my God my God why have you forsaken us".
Oh and thanks for the yes, yes, yes Jill :D
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