gritting-your-teeth

Several decades ago (sigh) I was part of a College and Career Group in Seattle that just so happened to get an advance copy of The Message version of Colossians. One of the group diligently typed out the entire letter from Paul, double spaced without verse numbers for each of us to have a copy. We spent each week pouring over five lines at a time, looking at repeating words as we slowly, methodically soaked in these powerful words.

Since that time, one of my favourite passages from the whole Bible are these words of Paul:

Last night was super hard. I filled my day with activity and doings. There were many little graces throughout the day, including discovering most of my daughter’s prescriptions for the next three months were now covered, and my eldest daughter came by after dinner (and had some leftovers with) to hang out with us.

Actually, for dinner I made a roast. Ken was the one who made roasts at our house. He’d use an Amish pot roast recipe when he made it that includes coffee. But I had 3/4 of a bottle of merlot that I needed to drain so I wouldn’t be tempted to drink it, so our pot roast cooked for 4 hours in a half litre of wine. It was a bit decadent. I cried cutting it, that was always Ken’s job. And I was able to get half of the kids to the dinner table. My son was at work, and one daughter is sick and was in bed sleeping (she came down just after I put everything in the fridge, of course). But we held hands and prayed together and that is something that we haven’t done in almost a year. Without Ken we haven’t had anyone to be our regular grace-giver. I sat in his chair at the head of the table and cried through the food blessing. It would have been so easy to stumble at that time (especially with the tender roast and mushrooms ahead of me) with a glass (or bottle) of wine. But I sipped on some chai tea (not even close to Brian Doerksen’s famous chai) and endured. The conversation was fun and I felt so connected.

We played two new (to me) card games. I’ve not had time for games with the kids since she was like 13. It was so fun. And Uno No Mercy actually does have a mercy, once you pick up over 25 cards you can bow out…

Then we watched a movie together and I sipped on water and didn’t feel like I was missing out AND I wasn’t getting lost in the plot, too much. Also, I didn’t know Colin Firth did action scenes so I wasn’t expecting him to be a brutal killer1. But that is another story.

Back to Colossians. I have often relied on the gritting-my-teeth strength to get through the difficult things. I’m asking that you’ll pray this prayer for me, that I’ll have the “strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives.”2 What I am currently facing is unendurable, and I don’t know how I thought that using alcohol was helping me get through it except in avoiding my pain and the pain of my children.

I also don’t want to be narcissistic about this. I know that many of my friends are struggling with hard things right now, and some have reached out and can empathize with my wanting to numb with wine or tv or computer games or . . . can we lift each other up? Last week, while I was at Lakeside Bible Camp, the speaker, Brian Ingraham encouraged us to ask God what time He is calling us to spend with him. I heard a somewhat ungodly hour for myself, considering I’ve spent the summer waking up mostly between 9-10am, but 7am it is. It’s before most of my people are usually up and I can be done by 8am when they will need assistance in finding socks and cooking scrambled eggs and making lunches. But it won’t be the only time. I am setting aside this time specifically for Bible Study (I’m working through a Precepts Upon Precepts3 study on Colossians and Philemon) but I will spend my evening hour before bed in prayer and journalling. Please message me not only your words of encouragement, but also your requests of prayer, so that I can return these acts of love for you.

Finally, I received several messages of encouragement yesterday I’d like to share with you:

And this one from a sister who I often share a glass of wine:

Blessings!

Under His Mercy,
Jen