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Greg Hulbert's avatar

I'm with you on this, sweeping things under the rug does not work, nor do platitudes. Paul leans into and acknowledges his suffering many times. 2 Cor 1:8 "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself." He is very honest with his feelings to himself and others. Meanwhile his long term perspective embraced one of the amazing paradoxes of the Christian life "when I am weak - I am strong".

Here is the full context in 2nd Corinthians. " Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,[a] about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us

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Scott Boddie's avatar

You and I have talked before about how that is one of my favorite scriptures, David. And Lauren Manning's words are so powerful in that context.

We have been wounded, and we cannot pretend we have not been touched by adversity, not we can refuse to be held by it.

I think this is the gift that Radical Acceptance brings. This morning I woke to the thought that at times when we may feel parts of our life are DIS-integrating, we find other tracks that give evidence of greater integration with our purpose. A truly universal feeling that the entropy of things breaking down are at the same time building toward a better tomorrow. Both things can be true. We just need to choose to look for them.

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