greater things

"Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry, you will be saved."

"In your patience, possess ye your souls."

"By your endurance, you will gain your lives."

Luke 21:19

I have to admit something.

This summer has been hard. Very hard.

Make-me-angry-and-depressed hard.

And that's because, as they say, "the rain falls on the good and the bad."

And as my friends say, "to think we can really do something to manipulate our lives is not faith, it's superstition."

You know, I'm not afraid of hard things.

I'm afraid of bad memories.

I'm afraid of waking up next year, miserable at the thought of last year.

But in Luke 21 Jesus said,

"By your endurance, you will gain your souls."

And endurance is not brief. Endurance is waking up in the morning day after day when you'd rather not. Endurance is not panicking or being lazy. Endurance is steady and faithful until the end.

Besides, I do have some remarkable memories from this summer!

I dare not overlook them or God's abundant and surprising provision in other manners. It may be a little miserable, I may need to shape up, but God has been with me. I have no doubt about that.

Some of those fine memories include this Monday with Rickie & Carlos, kind friends we do not see often enough:

And then with Prince William (my own David Sedaris and the most recent Chicago transplant):

Blessed is the life.