Strength That Endures... Spills Over Into Joy

In my CaringBridge post of 5/15, I credited the faithful prayers of all those who have followed and supported Joy’s healing journey in large part for the overwhelming sense of our Heavenly Father’s sufficiency to hold us and carry us through this time. In fact, I came across what felt was like the perfect encapsulation of that sufficiency in Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” paraphrase of Paul’s letter to the Colossians chapter 1, verses 11-12.

Paul says, “We pray that you’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. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.”

It truly feels like all those who pray for Joy and our family have been praying Paul’s prayer for us because I know we would not have, “the strength to stick it out over the long haul,” with only the, “grim strength of gritting our teeth,” but I can truly say, and thank God and all of those have prayed so faithfully, that we have been blessed to experience, “the glory-strength God gives... a strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy…”

I think that bears repeating, “a strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy…”