You will bring beauty from pain.

We always ask, why do bad things happen to good people. In times of trouble, heartache, pain, and sickness, we immediately ask what we did to deserve such punishment. The fact of the matter is, we came into the world doomed to fail. We were born bare-bottomed. We screamed and flailed and gasped for air. Finally, we reached safety. The hands of the doctors holding us lovingly as they clipped the last pieces of what tied us to our prior residence. We could have been left there to fend for ourselves. People can argue about bad parenting and a rough childhood, but the fact is that someone raised them. Someone provided them milk and a place to sleep. If not, they would not have survived. Did we inherit this right as we came into the world? Are we required for someone to love and care for us, or are we in fact blessed by the fact that someone did?

When did we decide the world owed us something and stop being grateful for the things we have already received?

While I will not argue that circumstantially I have been better, I do know that my life is blessed beyond all comparison to what I deserve. I was filthy in sin, but have been washed clean. I was blind to my old ways and now I see. I was lost in reckless abandon, by grace I have been found. So yes, days are a struggle. But I know that what I was born into the world with, nothing, is what I deserve to leave with. Instead I receive grace and mercy, cleansers of my empty life, fillers of my empty heart. Whatever the day, whatever the outcome, each of our tiny broken spirits must hope in the fact the we have been able to live one more day in abundant love. When the day comes for Him to hold us lovingly in His hands and clip away the last pieces of our prior residence, we should go; grateful for the lives we undeservedly received.