Putting on That Old 45

Tonight I was writing a note of encouragement to someone who just lost her sister. As I was doing so, my husband put on one of my dad’s old records that I didn’t even know we had. The oldie, “Last Kiss,” began to play. It was a song that my dad and I always got excited about when it came on the radio and called, “Our song,” because we always sang it out to the top of our lungs in the car together. Funny thing is…it’s a sad, depressing, and not so theologically correct song. But it was ours, nonetheless.

 

Anyway, I just thought to myself, “Wow, that was kind of a nod from God.” He knew that I needed encouragement and reminder of joyful times with my Daddy even as I was trying to encourage someone else. He knew that I needed the reminder that the suffering I saw my dad go through was not in vain. It was to serve a greater purpose. It was for this reason…

 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 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. 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.” – 2 Corinthians 1:3-7.

 

It’s not about us. It’s all about Him. “But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”- 1 Peter 4:13. As strange and dichotomic as that sounds, it’s true…there is joy and fellowship when we participate in the sufferings of Christ. Why? Because it all leads back to the fact that He is weaving a gorgeous portrait and landscape of glory. It’s for himself. That sounds selfish, huh? Not at all. It’s for himself, but He graciously offers the gift of dwelling in His glory to us. I can’t wait for those clouds to be rolled back as a scroll some day and for my faith to be made into sight.

 

Great. Is. His. Faithfulness.

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