Count It All Joy!

“Count it all joy, my brethren,

When you meet various trials,

For you know that the testing

Of your faith produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect,

That you may be perfect and complete,

Lacking in nothing.”

James 1:2-4

 

When I was a young girl, I remember my mother saying that she wished God wouldn’t love her so much, as she believed that He had given her so many crosses to bear, and that she felt by carrying her crosses, she could prove her love to God.  Many times over the years, she was very tired and felt that a heavy weight on her shoulders making it extremely difficult to cope with what life had to offer her; especially, as a single mother, of six children; however, she never let her faith waiver. 

 

My dad had left us and he lived with another woman.  My mom did not have it easy with six growing children and an alcoholic husband, who was very abusive; who did not want to pay alimony and/or any other payments that might have helped his first family. 

 

Coming from a hardy stock of loving Christian heritage it was easy for me to fall in love with Jesus.  Some of the homes of the people that we visited were so holy, that I can remember feeling the presence of God, within their walls.  I remember being given gifts of Christian coloring books and comic books at a very early age.  My mother often got up early each morning and went to church and prayed, as did others in our neighbourhood.  My sisters and I often would follow her to church before school and would offer our prayers to God with her.  It was not unusual to see half of the church full of people.

 

I must have been six years old when I remember having my first conversation with God.  It was after one of these early morning services that I had attended.  I cannot remember that far back what the homily was about but it must have been on life after death, as I remember walking back home and conversing with Him. 

 

“God when we die how can I talk to you?” I asked Him.

 

“Close your eyes,” He whispered gently to me.

 

I did.  As I stood quietly, on that cold, crisp winter morning, almost half-way home, God spoke once again, “Now, as we speak, this is how we will speak to each other in heaven, except that you won’t have your physical body.  You will have a different body.  You will have your spiritual body.”

 

“Wow,” I thought and understood.  Merrily, I went on my way, not thinking that it was an incredible thing that God had just spoken to me but encouraged to know that I now had the knowledge of how I would wander and speak in heaven.

 

Life is that easy…if only we could remember to trust our Father as a child trust his or her parents…it is that easy! 

 

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like

Children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 

Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is

The greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:3-4