COV LIFE BLOG

Women’s Ornament Swap – Recap

Maybe you have been to 5, 10 or even 20 ornament swaps in your life. Or maybe this was your first time attending. In my limited experience, they have been full of sweet fellowship, laughter and delicious food (of course). This year was no different when it came to those things.

There was one thing that was different this year. It was a reminder that I believe we all needed to hear. Hope Henchey shared a message of hope in suffering. She reminded us of these truths:

God is sovereign. The fact that God is in complete control can seem like bad news at times, because this means He could’ve orchestrated things differently than the hard situations He has given us.

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He will. – Proverbs 21:1

We live in a broken world. We are homesick for a place we’ve never been to, and citizens of a city yet to come. We often get what is to come confused with what already is, which leads us to want to withdraw from anything that will cause us difficulty. Sometimes we just coast along as easily as we can until we reach heaven.

And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. – Romans 8:17-18

This world is not our rest. God has provided us the glorious option of not having to wait until the difficulties of life are over; but we can step into all the troubles of life intentionally and fulfil our call to bring the gospel to those who have yet to believe!

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. – Romans 8:20-21

“Maybe it’s a better thing to be more than merely innocent, but to be broken, then redeemed by love.” — from Andrew Peterson’s Don’t You Want to Thank Someone

– Lauren Young