Thankful Series: Day Two (+Giveaway News)
All this month I will be watching on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and my new subscribers for my monthly-0r-so newsletter. If you tag me @JulieArduini and tell me you’re #thankful or #juliearduinithankful, I’ll enter your name to win a copy of my fiction books. This includes Entrusted, Entangled, Engaged, You’re Beautiful and the boxed set of A Christmas to Remember (only available as eBook.)
If you live in the United States, you have the choice, if you are the one winner randomly chosen, of print (except A Christmas to Remember,) or eBook. If you are outside of the US, it is automatically eBook.
I’ll add your name once a day for each shout out I receive (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, plus one total entry if you are a new subscriber to my newsletter.) You may or may not receive confirmation from me for those entries, and my random draw is final. If winner doesn’t respond after 30 days, I will choose another. I’m thankful for you.
This is a strange thankful feeling at a glance.
I’m thankful for the hard stuff.
Like yesterday, that’s easy to type, but those two words, hard stuff, in my life contain what I believe are warehouses of tears. I picture these silo-shaped buildings in heaven and that several have my name on. Jesus is going to give me a tour and we’re going to talk about those tears. There have been so many more shed than I have ever, ever let on.
My adult tears have been infertility, bad days at work, hormones messing with me to the point of madness, engagement stress, marriage, pregnancy, PTSD related to a car accident while pregnant, baby blues, parenting, transitioning to stay-at-home mom, moving, sick children, near death of child, death of parent and in-laws, injustice, betrayal, and loss.
I would never raise my hand and say I loved those experiences and yearn for them again.
But in those hard, devastating times, I became the person I am.
Certainly not on my strength. On my own I’ve learned I’ll eat a box of Thin Mints all by myself and then cry over that. My faith in Christ gave me promises and other experiences to read and draw from, yep, from the Bible. I learned and applied what I heard in sermons. I lamented in prayer—I mean honest, raw prayers God was able to handle and I needed to say. He gave comfort through many sources, including friends. But most of all, He gave me preparation. Those wildernesses, which I call the Hosea 2:14 experience (in the Bible, “I will put her in the wilderness and speak tenderly to her, rough summary.) destroyed everything in me that wasn’t useful and equipped me for everything from heaven that could change this dark world for the light of Christ.
And that’s available to anyone, please don’t think I have anything special going on.
I still cry. Last year was ROUGH and I’m starting to see a lot of fruit come from those times, as hard as it was.
Believe it or not, I am thankful.
I really am.
