Woe isn't me....

I am blessed.

I really mean that.  I am absolutely blessed.

Tonight, I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself.  I am ill.  If the doctors don't figure this out tomorrow and I'm praying they do, there is a chance it could turn into something serious.  I've lived through a lot of these symptoms about thirty years ago.  Stuff that you should never feel hurts bad enough that I took a pain pill.  I'm gonna take another one in a minute.  The first one didn't work.  I didn't expect it to.

It's not that I hurt that bad.  It's what hurts.  One should never have to feel their giblets.

Anyway, a co-worker gave me a box of apples from his private orchard.  He has eleven apple trees.  That qualifies as an orchard.  Anyway, as I was walking out to get them I found myself telling God that I didn't understand, that I did the good things I do because I love Jesus.  Because I love God.  Because that's what His word says to do.

Conversations like that are prayers and because He's the God who answers prayers, He did.  As I was waiting to inform the guy in charge that I needed to go home early (I'm ill....) I thought that God and I would have a little talk about all of this on the way home.

But I couldn't find the guy right away and it was break time, so I took a break and looked at my Facebook page.  On it, I found my answer from Chuck Swindol.  Sometimes we suffer for doing good and Peter talks about it in 1 Peter, which I looked up.  I like Chuck Swindol.  He gets right to the point. The last video I saw from him was two minutes long.  It was about the eternal question we all want answered:

"Why?"

Chuck asked about all the whys and wrapped it up in one neat little package.  "He's God and you're not.  Stop asking why."

Suffering for doing good?  It happens.  Look at what Jesus suffered.  I know a young man at church who has suffered more in his short lifetime than I have.  I reminded a co-worker how blessed we are.  A job, a meal, a car to drive, and a roof over your head puts you ahead of 75% of the planet.

Not the country...the whole planet.

I know a lady who is fighting cancer.  Nasty cancer.  Experimental drug that costs $10,000 a month experimental drug nasty.  On top of that, her husband had open heart surgery and had to have CPR to come back.  She's a great lady and she and her family are going through a lot.

Me, I have kidney problems.  Tomorrow we will talk about why I have them and what best to do about them.  I'd say I have a 50/50 chance of winding up as a guest at McKay-Dee tomorrow for some IV antibiotics and a whole plethora of tests.

Here we go again.

Suffering?  Maybe.  Maybe things aren't going right despite my efforts at trying to make them.  I've mounted up failure after failure for trying to do good.  And in the midst of this, my friend Tami was healed from an infirmity she has had for a very, very long time.  To add the cherry on top of this news was reconciliation with her oldest daughter.  Two blessing in one day!  I'm glad she's here to help me.

I read 1 Peter tonight.  Suffering for doing good is a blessing.  When you look at it in the context of what Jesus suffered for doing nothing wrong, it's a reminder that the world is a cruel place and sometimes suffering for doing what's right leads us closer to Christ.

And that, dear readers, is a blessing!

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