Count It All Joy; December 1, 2021

I wrote this very early this morning - just after 12 midnight on December 1, 2021 - originally as an Instagram post, but decided to pull it back to this very, very small audience.

I'm up late as I had something to do that was time sensitive for my job and then I was preparing a post for the Volte Endurance Training Facebook page for Wednesday.

I was going to use (and probably still am) a picture that Bill Dwyer took of Mike and Michaela Csikos running together in the rain at Run Thru The Woods.  My idea was to attempt to convey the joy of - as a parent - being able to run with your child.

However, my mind - in the quirky ways it works - brought me to the "count it all joy", which are these verses here in the image (above).

Some commentary states, "Trials are difficult and painful.  But they exist for a purpose.  Trials have the potential of producing something good in us, and, for this reason, they are an opportunity for expressing joy.  Knowing there is a bigger picture, we can consider trials as things to rejoice in.  Even though joy is contrary to our normal reaction, James urges us to work on changing our attitude toward troubles from dread to positive expectation, faith, trust and even joy."

In my current season of trials, I take "steadfastness" to be "establishing and maintaining boundaries."

For my personality type, i.e. an empath, it is very, very hard to have to take certain actions - such as "no contact" with individuals or various groups of people, let's say -- to protect my emotional state and sense of mental well being because of the actions of others.

While walking earlier this evening, I thought that if I were able to be in close quarters with someone that I have an issue with (but am not given a path to resolve my end of it with them) and be able to walk right by them as if they weren't there, then they would be a total lost cause to me.  Or as if I never knew them, even in the most casual sense.

Yet, as believers, our charge is that we would never write off somebody as a lost cause, especially as it relates to them coming to know Christ as their personal Savior.

Therefore, we're just uncomfortable around them - something I've lived - because they don't subscribe to the same sense of principle that we aspire to live by.