Holidays and Princess Grace

Choir camp is over.
My invigilation duties for the week are over.
I relish the luxury of sitting at a cafe, finishing up a good book, typing on my Baby Lappy on a lovely weekday morning.
Thank you, God, for everything.
For my family, all you've given me, safety and health, friends...
***
when everything appears pretty, like now, it's easy to feel that "happily ever after" has started.
Yet, it hasn't really.

Just read an email update from Grace in Chiang Mai.
And it was so moving to see her battle so courageously.
She's such a princess in appearance - pretty, pink, girly.
But wow, her tenacity and yieldedness to God is the stuff heroes are made of.

A very human, protective, cowardly, satan-inspired (like peter) instinct in me wants to say to her, "Enough, come back and rest for awhile. You've done enough for the people there, you've done enough for God there. You deserve to rest, there are so many others who should also be obliged to go, so many others who haven't sacrificed like you did." It sounds reasonable, but it reeks of satan.

But not her. Her email had nothing of the whiny voice of Self-Pity. Nothing of the bitter voice of Resentment. Nothing of the cowardly whimpers of Quitter.

Right in our midst, we have an example to follow.

A warrior, a faithful lover of God.

What a beauty. What an inspiration.

Fight on, dear sister.
Your labour in the Lord is never in vain.
May every tear, every sacrifice, every pain result in a multiplied harvest.
May you, as you labour, see with eyes of faith the reward that is yours in heaven.
May the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit be your friend and help and comfort.

And, we're with you too.