brenda’s thoughts, watch out I’m Christian

Called Turning Toward Joy

The first chapter was about finding joy in the community

It was an easy read

Because it’s easy to understand and agree that others can bring you great joy

The next chapter about has me beat

It’s on finding joy in adversity

I wrote an inappropriate comment about adversity under the title of the chapter

“Adversity sucks”

He is using Paul’s letter to the Philippians to explain the joy that Paul had and displayed

One sub topic was  ”adversity promotes the progress of the gospel”

He says, “He (Paul) was not occupied with inconvenience that imprisonment had caused him. His concern was in the gospel and in its advance.”

On the inside of the book cover I wrote

“Well that’s not me

I am not that good

I am concerned with my inconvenience

And I am concerned with my imprisonment”

Also in the chapter was the story of Dave Dravecky who was able to use the loss of a limb to minster

I shot back with

“I know that I can minister to women going through divorce because I am divorced

I know that I have a heart for abused children because my own children were mistreated

But what am I supposed to do with this new deprivation

Minister to homeless people living in a camper in the parent’s yard who have internet service?”

I was obviously upset this day and tired of my circumstances

Everybody has days like that

God understands

Its people who think you should be better than you are

I started making a list of people who had suffered through hardships in the Bible

And asking how long did it last

How long was Jonah in the belly?

How long was David in the caves?

How long was Paul in prison?

How long did Job sit and fuss?

Hoping that my internment wouldn’t exceed theirs in length and definitely not in circumstance

Then he said that our adversity encourages others

I like helping others so that encouraged me

I scribbled

“If I can do it anybody can”

Though I hear a lot of women say to me “you’re so brave”

And I say, “no I’m determined and I know that God is with me”

Don’t let anything make you give up or give in

Just make sure God is with you on your venture

David Jeremiah said the Greek word for eager expectation means

“Watching something so closely that your head is turned away from everything else”

If your head is turned toward the gospel like Paul’s was this is a good thing

But if your head is turned toward ungodly things then this is very bad

Personally my head pivots all over the durn place

He listed three characteristics that Paul had that helped him find joy in adversity

I used them as a measuring rod for my own search for joy in adversity

They are

Clear conscience

Courageous testimony

Christ-centered focus

And I found my problem

I guess you need to figure out what your purpose is

Then move toward it with eager expectation

Like Paul did

Being awake in the middle of the night

As I often am

I am the insomnia king

And it is not, it is not a glorious thing

To be the insomnia king

 I found myself listening to Bob Seger’s Night Moves on youtube

When I was 16

I connected with the song for the first time

Having been acquainted with the night

And insomnia since as far back as I could remember

The poem in the song had spoken to me

Woke last night to the sound of thunder

How far off I sat and wondered

Started humming a song from 1962

Ain’t it funny how the night moves

When you just don’t seem to have as much to loose

Strange how the night moves

With autumn closing in

Strange how the night moves

I had spent the summer in the basement of an old library reading everything Shakespeare

Biography and sonnets included

The one word autumn told me that he had read the sonnets too

We weren’t in love, oh no far from it

Sadly at 16 I already knew that sex didn’t have anything to do with love

And I knew of teenage blues and steeling away

So I listened and sighed at the memory

And wondered at the melancholy

And wondered if it was there when I was a teen

And remembered it was

Tonight

I look at the poem again for the first time in many years

And see more than before

How the poem moves through the years of a life

From childhood habits of counting seconds between lightening and thunder

To adult habits of counting years between birth and death

We don’t give these song writers enough credit

What else is there to do in the middle of the night

When you’re all alone

And can’t sleep

Where is that book

I almost died

Not literally

I went to a line dance class

It as so fun

Now you gotta know that I can’t remember dance steps to save my life

Once at a dance

I almost killed a man

Kinda

I twirled this way

When everyone else had twirled that way

And I twirled right into this fella

I knocked him right over

Then I stomped this other fella’s foot

It was sad

So tonight

There are all these elderly ladies

And they are good

Really good

I tried

But

I can’t remember steps to save my life

And

I’m just too young to be so out of shape

All those ladies just kept going

Not me

But it was fun

Really

And

In the end

The instructor was dancing with his wife

They looked so good together

Like they were made for each other

I almost cried

You know that is the second show of real love I have seen in two days

Maybe I’ll see one very day

I hope so

Yesterday

There was a fella at church

We were talking about a mutual friend

Then he went off on the tangent of his wife

He began smiling and

His eyes watered

“She’s been dead 14 years now”

He said

“You still love her, don’t you”

“Of course

I’ll be buried right next to her when I die”

Man!

Love, when it’s right

Is amazing