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In Everything?

             in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. (I Thessalonians 5:18)

Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mocking and flogging, and further, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented (people of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts, on mountains, and sheltering in caves and holes in the ground. (Hebrews 11:35-38)

In everything? Give thanks in everything? Deaths of loved ones? Lingering illnesses? Injustice? Mental illness? Persecution? Pandemics? Political upheavals?  Everything?

I’ve said many times that 2020 was one of the best years of my life. I published two novels. I expanded my gardens, learned to make jams, jellies, salves, sauces, and simples, and to hot-water bath can. I learned about plants in my neighborhood that could be used for food or personal care. I learned to remove the glaze from windows and reglaze them. I worked in a food pantry.  I can’t say that 2021 has been quite as good, mostly because I don’t think I learned as much, or that I did as much good for others. It wasn’t a bad year. I actually found a seasonal job I liked, but it’s not 2020.

That doesn’t mean either year was without struggle. I can’t say that the pandemic raged, but it simmered. I cracked a tooth and had to have it crowned. I got plant-based contact dermatitis (the doctor said it wasn’t poison ivy, but close enough.) I caught the Delta Variant (in spite of vaccination.) My books haven’t sold meaning that I’m successful as a writer (I have written books) but I’m a failure at marketing.

I’m re-reading my third Dallas Willard book this year, Renovation of the Heart. The focus of the professor’s books is spiritual formation, which means that it’s all about becoming the sort of person who does the things that a good person does. That seems to me to be the difference between 2020 and 2021. In 2020, I was determined to not let my circumstances control me but to use the pandemic as motivation to become more resourceful and competent. In 2021, it seems that I was more focused on having a better year than 2020. In other words, I’m more focused on the end than on the opportunities, and on the external results rather than on the internal results. As I look at those results and the fact that I see 2020 as a better year than 2021, I must conclude that the external results aren’t what make a year a good year. It’s the internal results that make a year good. And external difficulties can lead to good internal results. So, yes, in everything – even the bad things – give thanks because those things are the things that will lead you to become more and more one of the people of whom the world is not worthy.

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