classic Saturday

A friend of mine asked me yesterday, "How do we invite and help people walk into the really hard stuff?" She and her husband are foster parents and have recently been grieving as their home emptied from having five children in it. They had been fostering two sibling groups who were placed into permanent home settings at about the same time. Though these friends have been foster parenting for years, their loss of the kids this time has been especially hard because of the length of time the kids were in their home and the involvement they had had with the biological parents.

They've been experiencing pain deeply, but only because they've experienced love and life deeply. And instead of advising people to avoid such an experience, they are perhaps compelled more than ever to invite others into such an experience.

This week's devotion might speak a bit to this. It was written by Francis de Sales (1567-1622) who addressed "devotion" in this particular passage:

"Those who discouraged the Israelites from going into the Promised Land told them that it was a country that "devoured its inhabitants." In other words, they said that the air was so malignant it was impossible to live there for long, and its natives such monsters that they ate humans like locusts. It is in this manner that the world distorts holy devotion as much as it can. It pictures devout persons as having discontented, gloomy, sullen faces and claims that devotion brings on depression and unbearable moods. But just as Joshua and Caleb held both that the Promised Land was good and beautiful and that its possession would be sweet and agreeable, so too the Holy Spirit by the mouths of all the saints and our Lord by his own mouth assure us that a devout life is sweet, happy, and lovable....

It is true that devout souls encounter great bitterness in their works of mortification, but by peforming them they change them into something more sweet and delicious. Because the martyrs were devout men and women, fire, flame, wheel, and sword seemed to be flowers and perfume to them. If devotion can sweeten the most cruel torments and even death itself, what must it do for virtuous actions?"

Many of the most alive folks in Christ that I know are also people who are walking into hard stuff and sacrificially giving and living. It's absolutely the upside-down Kingdom stuff. I think of parenting as a parallel. Why would we tell someone to enter into something that is going to be physically painful at the onset...will cause us to lose much sleep....cost a lot of money over the years....be hard work...cause us to sacrifice "me" time....and there will be inevitable conflicts, heartbreak, and failings in the journey. Yet, the majority of the population chooses to have children. Love and devotion. Something flowers that outweighs the hard stuff and changes it into something "more sweet and delicious." Jesus invites us into a world of hard stuff so that his love can penetrate and change the lives of all involved to be "sweet, happy, and lovable."