Category Archives: identity

undo, redo: the answer is repentance

Posted on by April 23, 2025

My old crossword puzzle book is a magnificent doorstopper with over 200 puzzles in it. I’ve taken it up again, and whether they want to or not, my family inevitably gets roped into helping me with it.

“What’s fish-eating bird that starts with E, only four letters?”

“Kingfisher!” our youngest hollers.

“Four letters, starts with E,” I repeat.

“Eagle!” says a kid who shall remain nameless.

“Four letters…”

“Emu!”

“Four! Letters!”

“Oh…how do you spell emu?”

Headdesk, headdesk. Are they even listening?

Sort of. They are doing what I do, what you do, what we all do: Taking the little bit we know and running with it, rather than attending to the full picture.

undo, redo: the answer is repentance | Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

I do this when I think I have the right answer to a crossword clue based on only one letter. Dateless, four letters, starts with S? SOLO, easy. It works perfectly with the S but not so much for the other letters, and after a while I peek in the back (don’t tell) and realize the correct answer is supposed to be STAG.

Duh, of course. Erase, erase, erase, brush the rubbings away, write the correct answer, try again.

Next clue! Crescent-shaped – six letters, the second one is a U.

If you, like me, thought it should be CURVED…you, like me, would also be wrong. Sigh.

None of the other letters worked with their corresponding clues, so I stole another peek in the back (that answers section really is quite handy), and found the correct answer is LUNATE. (What?! So fancy.)

I think the lesson here (other than that I need to expand my vocabulary) is that when I am faced with a problem, my first response isn’t necessarily the right one. Sometimes it is good – sometimes I remember to pray, to trust, to worship. But other times, my first response is to rifle through the cabinet and eat a handful of chocolate chips.

The real answer, of course, is about abiding and proximity. I know that one. Knowing and doing aren’t always the same thing, though, which is why we’re also talking a lot lately about going back, undoing, and redoing – or maybe what we really mean is repentance.

Let’s go back a little farther than that, though. Repentance comes later, after something has gone amiss.

We usually talk about sins in a big, broad, generic way, but the Bible often specifies between ways of, shall we say, blowing it. Like so, real brief:

  • Sins: These are basic mistakes. Whoops, I tried but I messed up, I’m sorry. You probably know that it literally means “miss the mark,” which means we aimed and intended to do the right thing, but got it wrong. SOLO looked like the right answer, but it was actually STAG. Drat.
  • Iniquities: This goes back to the root word avon, meaning “distortion or bent.” It’s more like a learned misbehavior, often (but not always) generational. They can be defense mechanisms, wrong beliefs we grew up with, or bad habits and coping skills (see also chocolate chips). It is a perversion or distortion of what is otherwise right. CURVED seemed like the obvious answer, and I’ve never even used the word LUNATE in a sentence until now.
  • Transgressions: This is outright wrongdoing and rebellion – and ironically, it’s what we usually mean when we use the word “sin.” This is when we know the right thing but refuse to do it, or we know something is wrong but we do it anyway. The intention itself is willful disobedience. Who cares what the clues and corresponding letters are? I’m going to write GFYXRT in the boxes because I want to, so there.

Wasn’t that fun? So now we know there are several ways to get the wrong answer in life…and that explains a lot.

But here’s some good news:

He does not deal with us according to our sins
nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.

– Psalm 103:10

You’ll notice, of course, there’s a stipulation here: This is about those who fear Him. Not just anyone. It’s for those who look to Him in obedience and abiding, for those who trust and surrender, for those who repent and go back to undo and redo. Without abiding and surrender, we miss who God really is and we fall for Churchianity that is generally either harsher or fluffier than a genuine relationship with Jesus.

Because He deals with us differently depending on whether or not we find our answers in Him:

I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions and hid my face from them.

– Ezekiel 39:24

But then there’s this interesting contrast:

Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.
For you repay to all
according to their work.

– Psalm 62:11-12

Okay, to sum up: He removes the sins, iniquities, and transgressions of those who fear Him — and this requires our repentance and surrender. But He deals with (unrepentant) transgressors according to what they’ve done. And He repays all according to their work.

Huh. How do we reconcile all that together?

To the Hebrew!

Maaseh: Work, deed, act, labor, product, accomplishment. Meaning: an action, a transaction, activity, a product, property.

Did you notice the word “transaction?” I think this is our clue. Something is given in exchange for something else. We repent, we get forgiveness…and so much more.

Could it be that at least part of the work He pays us according to is repentance? Because this is the turning that keeps our eyes on Him. This is the surrender that admits we don’t know what we’re doing and we need His answers. This is the humility that confesses we get it wrong on our own.

Repentance – undoing, and redoing – is hard work. It requires attending to things we’d rather not deal with.

When I started this afghan a few years ago, I didn’t know what I was doing. There was no pattern in mind, just a basic seed stitch and stripes to keep my hands busy. But as I went, I loved what it became more and more. And as I loved it more, I liked the beginning less. It didn’t fit the rest of the pattern, I didn’t like the sequence of colors, I hated looking at it. In iniquity this blanket was conceived…and when we know better, we do better.

But do you have any idea how much work it is to un-knit 250 stitches to create a new edge? So much work. Tedious, annoying, repetitive, and you can’t read a book while doing it because your eyes have to be on it the whole time lest you drop a stitch and revive the phrase “swears like a knitter.”

It had to be done, though.

After deciding which row should be the new edge and where the old stuff should be removed, I wove another cable needle into the new “first” row, and un-knit all those stitches, pulling the old yarn through each individual stitch in increasingly long lengths, casting it across the couch over and over and over, and pulling it through the old loops and stitches all over again. You can’t just rip it out knitting; you have undo it a stitch at a time or else the loose (“live”) stitches will run like a gigantic hole in pantyhose.

It takes about four times as long as the original process, and yes, it is as miserable as it seems. It took me two weeks to undo it all.

But now the new edge matches the rest of the pattern…and I’m happy with it, now that I know what I’m doing. I don’t mind looking at it anymore – in fact, I love it.

If we are avoiding looking at something, it might mean we need to attend to it all the more and do some repenting. That area we’d rather not deal with is probably the one that most needs undoing and redoing…or at the very least, a little more maintenance.

Untangling, realigning, reordering. Life is messy and repentance is a lifestyle, not a checked off event.

But the redoing comes with great rewards, because since He repays us according to our repentance, we can ask for bold things:

My mouth is filled with your praise
and with your glory all day long.
Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
do not forsake me when my strength is spent.

O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might
to all the generations to come.

– Psalm 71:8-9, 17-18

And here we start to see some of the reward of stewarding our days, attending rightly, learning better and doing better. We realize what we missed, and we pick up on what we were oblivious to before.

We draw better boundaries, we go from glory to glory. Whatever happened in the past, we’ve moved forward from. And when we’ve done that, we have stewarded our days with glory, filling them with praise.

P.S. That fish eating bird, four letters, starts with an E? ERNE. Who knew? (Not me.)

proclaim: why women, too, should go and tell

Posted on by March 26, 2025

I hate dealing with haters. Or as our 6-year-old says, the h-word.

But doing most anything gets easier with more experience, and in the internet world even the most innocent posts rile up opposition.

Like recently when I shared a few Bible verses online – which I do daily – and someone thought it was important to remind me that Paul said women aren’t supposed to teach, and that I should pray about it, and that I should also cover my head while doing so. Bless his heart.

proclaim: why women, too, should go and tell | Shannon Guerra

In the last few years, I’ve had a lot of hate from people who misunderstand a few verses in the Bible at the expense of the entirety of scripture. I’ve been attacked for sharing short videos online with prayer and personal testimonies. People have called me horrible names for talking about what I’m reading in the Bible and how it impacted me, or for sharing different connections the Lord revealed to me or things that He said to me (who knew there were so many Christians who don’t think the Lord speaks through anything or to anyone except through the physical paper in their KJV?…but that’s a whole other tangent).

And none of them agree. The responses are illogical and varied:

  • Some of them are okay with writing but not speaking (because writing is silent).
  • Some deem it acceptable to share online (Oh thank you, gracious ones…*curtsies*) as long as it’s only in a women’s forum.
  • Some allow sharing a testimony, but don’t you dare mention Greek or Hebrew in reference to Scripture because that could be seen as teaching, donchaknow.
  • Some are fine with women speaking or writing or teaching on any topic in the world as long as it’s not spiritual, because as soon as you mention Jesus or God or Holy Spirit or prayer or anything else, it becomes preaching and triggers the 1 Timothy 2:12 alarm.
  • Others condone sharing scripture and commentary as long as you stand on one foot while typing with your non-dominant hand.

You get the picture. I made the last one up, but the rest are based on actual arguments I’ve encountered.

I’ve been opposed for all kinds of things that actually do resemble teaching and preaching – like, um, teaching and preaching, I guess – but never by someone who understood the Bible in context. Remarkably, it’s only by those who view Scripture through a Western, English-speaking lens, because of course that’s what Jesus and Paul used. Hee hee.

But never have I ever been opposed by someone who also professes to be a believer fighting for expansion of the Kingdom for simply copying a few verses and posting them online. Until last week.

Slippery slope, eh? This is what legalism (including patriarchy, or complementarianism, or whatever your jargon prefers) leads to.

Irony abounds though, because many choose the side that silences women out of fear of the slippery slope on the other extreme – because ohmygosh, if women realized that they, too, have authority and are part of the priesthood and are also the chosen people sent to go and tell, it might result in bra burning, blue-haired feminism, and who knows what other chaos and nonsense.

We can’t have that. No, we have to control, instead.

So here, at least, we see the culprit: Fear. And isn’t that interesting.

What’s also interesting is that it doesn’t work at all. We have seen many slippery slopes – from drag queen storytimes to pastors caught in sex scandals – but women who just want to tell people about Jesus generally aren’t the ones sliding down them.

Fear that manifests as control is usually birthed out of offense. It happens on both sides.

People see something they don’t like or don’t approve of or don’t understand, and they get offended. You’ll know who they are right away; they’re the ones who refuse to keep reading, or only do so to leave angry, insulting comments (or they leave in the middle of the sermon and write condescending emails on Monday). They refuse to learn, refuse to move forward, refuse to allow their preconceived notions to be challenged.

But also, they refuse to trust that God knows and can handle what “those other people” are doing and thinking, and generally demand that others do and think the way they do.

This is a sad situation because instead of worshiping (which requires trusting) the Creator in the fullness of who He is and what He did, those acting out of fearful control choose instead to worship (and put their trust in) a few isolated verses at the expense of the rest of Scripture, and then use them to beat down the half of the Kingdom who possess ovaries.

And again, the irony: Their misapplication only fuels that blue-haired feminism they so despise.

How is that working out for us, Church?

Do those who misunderstand those few verses in the Bible – and yet can’t even agree among themselves – get to dictate which of Jesus’ teachings and commands apply to everyone, and which are only for men and thus forbidden to women?

Do we really think that the full gospel only applies to men?

Any honest student of the Bible will admit that there are sections here and there that seem confusing or contradictory on the surface. How should we respond?

One option is to dig deeper to reconcile and understand. Another option is to simply err on the side of silencing and prohibiting half the Kingdom from sharing the good news.

But are we not also the Temple of the Living God?

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

– 1 Peter 2:9

In order that you may proclaim…Was this verse written only for men? Or are women not also called to proclaim the excellence of Him who called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light?

No, no, don’t give me any BS about the many quiet, demure ways women can “proclaim.” I know. I love making chowder for a crowd, quietly praying with others, tucking my children in at night, and interceding on behalf of the world around me. I can even make a knock-your-socks-off grilled cheese sandwich. Those are some of my very favorite things.

But I also really like talking about Jesus.

And I’ve become quite fond of looking up the Bible’s original Greek and Hebrew.

Proclaim here in the Greek means to declare, to tell out, to announce publicly. So it requires a bit of volume. It’s clear that those particular men (and some women) who demand silence are sitting on the wrong side of both history and scripture.

Fortunately, when people stand in opposition to God’s commands, we are called to obey God rather than men. We’re in good company here:

So [the religious leaders] called them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

– Acts 4:18-20

It’s getting late. Writers check their word counts like executives glance at their watches, and we’re at 1200 words already and just look at how you’re hanging in there. Well done, high five.

But here we are, and I haven’t even gotten to my notes yet about what I really wanted to share with you.

So first, quickly, there are tons of resources that explain the context, language, and cultural value of the cherry-picked verses often misused to keep women silent (here, here, here, and here are some excellent ones). You should read them if you’re interested (and if you’re not, you should definitely read them).

With all that out of the way – this is how we work smarter, not harder, because most of the trolls have probably left the room by now – I’ll tell you about my most recent trip through the end of Romans, written by Paul, who also authored most of those often misused verses.

** opens notes, cracks knuckles, rubs hands together **

Romans is 16 chapters long and we’re starting in the middle of 15. I’ve read it a gajillion times before (okay, probably only twenty) but never noticed this:

I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

– Romans 15:14

Huh. Instructing is a lot like teaching, and “one another” means they are not segregated (like into sexes), but together.

Okay, carry on. Now we move to chapter 16, and right off we see this:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord, as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.

– Romans 16:1-2

This woman, Phoebe, was a deacon. Some translations say “servant” but the Greek word is diakonos, the same used for “servant” or “minister” all throughout the gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

She was also a “benefactor” – which is sort of a vague term, but in the Greek (yay, fun!) it’s prostatis, and more specifically it means patroness, helper, protector, or guardian. Paul says she was this for him and others. Because of the language of this text, many believe it was Phoebe who delivered and read Paul’s letter to the Romans – and that, of course, would’ve required speaking aloud, ahem.

Moving on:

Greet Prisca and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus…

– Romans 16:3

First, if you’re thinking of Priscilla and Aquila, yes, same people. If you’re thinking that Prisca is a short nickname for Priscilla (like I did), it’s actually the other way around. Prisca was her name, Priscilla was a nickname – adding “illa” was sort of like changing Anne to Annie.

Secondly though, and more relevant to our discussion, she’s mentioned before her husband. That stands out as odd and notable for their culture, which would generally have put the man’s name first. Putting her name first (which happens four out of the five times they’re mentioned together) indicates her role in teaching and ministry was more prominent than her husband’s.

Okay, skip a few verses mentioning a couple more people, and we land on this:

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

– Romans 16:7

Junia was an apostle. This is shocking and abhorrent to some people, and they run to certain translations that watered the phrasing down to make it sound like she was simply known to the apostles. But no, we look at the original language and she was among the apostles – among, meaning she was part of that group, and it takes some theological backflips to say she was just there with them but not actually one of them.

Paul mentions many men and women in this chapter, showing clearly that they’re working side by side in ministry and leadership.

Then he finishes his acknowledgments and immediately launches into this, and it’s no accident:

I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who create dissensions and hindrances, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them.

– Romans 16:17

What is more divisive than telling half the Kingdom they cannot participate in all of the Great Commission? What is more hindering than telling that half to stay quiet?

For such people do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.

– Romans 16:18

To be fair, not all who teach this are purposefully serving their own appetites – they are just passing along what they themselves were taught, and they want to do the right thing, and that’s to be commended. But that mis-teaching has been based in self-interest, deceiving the naive – or, “akakos,” meaning innocent, guileless, simple…those who are focused on doing the right thing but without deeper understanding or knowledge.

And we need to pursue deeper understanding and knowledge. We don’t want to just be right, but righteous.

For your obedience is known to all; therefore, I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and guileless in what is evil. The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

– Romans 16:19-20

With the state of events right now, it is no wonder that the enemy would try to use the very scripture Christians revere to diminish the spread of the gospel. What is so slimy though, is that he has managed to use many in the Church to perpetrate the quelling of it.

It boggles the mind to see how out of touch that mindset is with not only scripture, but also the dire needs of a world on fire. People are living and dying amid wars, persecutions, sickness, and depravity, so how can anyone in the Kingdom possibly justify telling 50% of Christians to be quiet about Jesus, and just let them handle it?

We can’t. We were never meant to.

So go into all the world, and tell.

grit: how we wait & keep His way

Posted on by March 6, 2025

I sat at one end of the couch, and our six-year-old with his pink cheeks was at the other. Our nine-year-old had the other couch, and both were banked by coffee tables littered with half-empty beverages.

Up too early with two feverish boys, trying to keep myself healthy and hydrated on only four hours of sleep, I remembered how just in the last post I said my mind was ambitious but my body said no, take a nap. And I wondered if this day would be the same but for different reasons.

grit: how we wait & keep His way | Shannon Guerra

I had just written about limitations, so I guess it was fair that I got to relive it: Limits force us to focus. I could only reach my end of the coffee table, which held my tea, planner, bible, book for class, a scripture verse on a slip of paper, and The House of Seven Gables, all of which I’ve been working my way through.

That sounds productive, but I spent plenty of time just staring blankly out the window, watching the chickadees at the feeder and the cars on the highway. Also, I checked temperatures. Reminded Finn and Kav to drink their tea, and they made slow progress.

Both of the boys had a day – separately, though, praise God – when their fevers spiked high enough to peak with delirium and tachycardia, which is a fancy way of saying we could see their pulses tapping under the curve of their necks while they mumbled nonsense about ice cubes talking and the walls changing shape and color.

It was alarming, but twenty years of reading classic literature hasn’t been for nothing. Everyone who’s read Sense and Sensibility knows that Marianne raved incoherently before her fever broke, too.

So we kept their foreheads cool and let the fevers do their job. And they did, but when we thought they were finally on the mend, a new phase started with congestion and coughing, which didn’t seem fair because that’s not how it’s supposed to work. You’re supposed to get over whatever it is and move on with life, not just transition into a new form of sickness.

But no, two days later, both boys and I were all coughing and sniffling. Still drinking all the fluids and doing the right things, but also, still working our way through whatever it was. My head hurt when I turned too fast to look left or right, but I mostly felt fine as long as I didn’t do anything ambitious like leave the couch.

Sometimes we think we’re making progress, but then we suddenly realize there’s so much more ahead than we had anticipated. And it doesn’t feel like progress anymore; it feels more like discouragement, or even defeat.

He sees you when small steps forward cause you to grieve, because it seems like they ought to be bigger steps forward by now…or they ought not to have been needed at all because the circumstances should never have happened.

You’re not in trouble for having mixed feelings over progress that restores the regress of hard situations.

It’s okay to be both grateful for the progress and grieved over its necessity.

He is doing something in both the grief and the gratitude.

– Grit: Kindling to Relight the Wounded and Weary

I gathered the empty cups and crumpled tissues, thought about the work that would need to be set aside for another day. Wondered how long it would last, and how much I wasn’t going to get done this week.

And then I heard the Lord say, What if this isn’t sickness, but immunity?

Because that’s what perseverance and grit develop.

Wait for the Lord and keep to his way,
and he will exalt you to inherit the land;
you will look on the destruction of the wicked.

– Psalm 37:34

When we learn to focus and persist in the task that’s right in front of us, we protect ourselves from a lot of the drama and distractions in our periphery. We’re not necessarily unaware, but we’re on a mission.

(Like right now, she typed, ignoring the cat who repeatedly walked across her lap, meowing for attention.)

Being stuck on the couch with sick kids is not all that different from being stuck on the couch nursing a baby, which is how I’ve spent almost eleven years of my adult life. Those were the short years filled with long days; different couch, but the same coffee table. Those slow days taught me to steward what was in reach no matter how chaotic everything else out of reach was – drink the water, read the book, memorize the verse. Look out the window, observe and pray.

And this, too, is progress.

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices.

– Psalm 37:7

A few weeks ago one of our pastors said the difference between persistence and stubbornness is the direction you’re going, and that’s familiar because we’ve talked about holy stubbornness for a looong time.

Things don’t always go the way we want, but when we practice patient self control, playing it cool, we look like Jesus because we’re doing what He did. The Bible, of course, doesn’t say He “played it cool;” it uses phrases like divine forbearance...but the essence is the same. We, too, are looking past the wrongs and trusting Him to bring things right as we press on in the face of less than ideal circumstances.

We’re doing what needs to be done, no matter how humble or ugly or unimpressive it seems. We’re pressing forward through the obstacles. And we’re letting go of the things out of reach, out of our jurisdiction and control.

We’re (a)biding our time in gritty surrender.

Our steps are made firm by the Lord
when he delights in our way;
though we stumble, we shall not fall headlong,
for the Lord holds us by the hand.

– Psalm 37:23-24

I didn’t want the kid to make that choice, I didn’t want to have to prune that relationship, I didn’t want that to happen. But it’s less about what we want, and more about how we respond once we see things as they are: Will we look to Him? Will we sit at His feet? Will we trust Him and forge ahead, however we’re able?

…let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

– Hebrews 12:1b-2

We are image bearers, becoming Who we behold even (especially) when it’s not easy to keep our focus. Like Mary of Bethany, who defied all kinds of opposition – including her closest family member and the cultural expectations of the day – to enter a room of men (scandalized gasp!) in order to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from Him. She defied religious norms just like she’d seen Him do, and whenever she was attacked, Jesus came to her defense.

Mary was mantled with authority because of her grit.

The Lord helps them and rescues them;
he rescues them from the wicked and saves them
because they take refuge in him.

– Psalm 37:40

Another thing we talked about in church recently was the process of refining gold. My friend who has personal experience with this pointed out that when gold is refined, impurities are removed – which means the weight is reduced but the value is increased.

I must become less, He must become more…so we make space for Him to move, and give permission to Him to refine us.

Friend, if you are in a hard spot, do you see how He is letting you in to see the inner place, where most people aren’t willing to go? He’s showing you the place in His heart where He also went through change that felt like loss. Betrayals, misunderstandings, moves, and new directions. Rejection, people changing, culture shifting.

And He’s not wasting any of this.

…we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

– Romans 5:2b-5

You know that one area that you’ve struggled with for so long – the one you’ve confessed and repented and prayed and changed habits for, but the battle is in the mind and you’re still at war, wondering if you’ll ever see victory. Wondering if things will ever change.

What if you started seeing yourself in that situation from God’s perspective? What if you saw it as He sees it now: after the resurrection, after death and hell have been defeated?

What if you stopped seeing yourself as bad at handling this situation? Because we fight from victory, not for it.

Much of the enemy’s game is just bluffing and confusion. He wants to convince us to agree with him that this is just how it is, this struggle is our “cross” (ooh, he’s good at twisting scripture!), and we just aren’t spiritual enough to figure this out yet.

But if we agree with God and know that we have been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, including the authority to trample the enemy to pieces, we’ll look at it (and ourselves) differently.

We’ll know this is a work in progress but that God is making the progress, and our situation was never hopeless.

We aren’t bad at dealing with it. We just haven’t seen how good we are at conquering it yet.

No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us.

— Romans 8:37

In difficulty, opposition, or loss – or sickness or frustration or lack – we can choose to forge ahead, even when we’re sitting still. We’re not looking at this through fear’s lens anymore, focusing on the negative possibilities. We’re not looking through defeat’s lens, feeling like it’s over too soon and we blew it.

No, now we see through victory’s lens: abiding, watching it play out, not responding with knee-jerk reactions, but making deliberate moves in trust, confident that the Lord is at work, and He’s giving us the wisdom we need for our work, too.

What will we do when there’s so little within reach? Will we build even when our resources are limited and the materials aren’t ideal? Will we keep going even when the way is more uphill than we expected?

As we look to Him, we start to see like He does, too, and our perspective changes. So…what if this situation isn’t what it looks like? He’s teaching us to be alert, and to recognize that some things are not just what they seem.

What if it’s not really sickness or hardship or loss? What if it’s actually protection and preparation and provision?

It’s not sickness, it’s immunity — this situation isn’t taking from our lives, but adding to it. With the right perspective and gritty surrender, it’s gain, not loss. It’s adding steel to our spines, integrity to our intentions, wisdom to our experience, strength to our mind and character, and the ability to withstand.

Because slow progress is preparation, not punishment. Every time we trust Him, we protect our path forward. So much is happening that we can’t see, and God is doing miracles in us in the meantime as we look toward Him.

This is now available if you’ve been burned out or discouraged, and need some fuel for your calling. Grit is the first in the Kindling series — short, powerful, beautiful books to help relight you. Just $7 for the instant download, and you get both the full-color version and the black & white printable version, too. xo