Overcoming

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it -Helen Keller

Goodness is this world ever full of suffering.  I feel so keenly aware of it, tuned in to it, surrounded by it and fixated on it.  Glued to my TV watching real life unfold in Boston and West, Texas, knowing with each new development reported that this is no TV series.  How many times have I seen stuff like this on a TV show?  Not this time, the police in their bullet proof vests, the citizens being held up in their own homes in fear...this is their reality.  The explosion we have now probably all seen in West, Texas that took the lives of so many...such suffering.  

The son of my very dear friend just celebrated his 9th birthday...in heaven.  That precious one suffers no longer. Because of God's faithfulness, I am a witness to this family's suffering turning to joy.  They are overcoming in Jesus' name.  They have not overcome their suffering, but they are overcoming...experiencing days of joy in their lives once again, Amen! 

As is the case for so many, I don't have far to look for suffering either.  I glance over at my daughter sitting outside on a beautiful weekend and although her face never shows it, she has indeed endured more than enough suffering for one lifetime.  Her world is full of suffering, but it only takes one touch or one word to her and a smile breaks out across that face as bright as the sun.  That smile of hers is one of overcoming, not that she has overcome but that in and through Jesus she is able to overcome because He has overcome sin and death.

To overcome is to get the better of.  It is putting feet to the floor when we just want to hide under the covers, it is walking out the front door when we would rather stay home.  It is continuing to walk with God while we cry.  It is choosing not to live a life of bitterness, but instead to touch and feel and experience and breath in every single ordinary regular day.  For it is in those ordinary days that we find we are putting feet to the floor, we are getting out again and we are smiling.  We look back and see the faithfulness of God all along and how He has brought goodness out of the difficult.

John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart, I have overcome the world."