Suffering

Have been meditating on suffering lately. What if restoration or redemption was actually delivered through suffering? Suffering can be more of a teacher than prosperity. In its reductive capability. It reduces everything down to a minimum, to the essence, that we don't have  the answers, we don't have the distractions that can be delivered through prosperity. 

"When suffering sandblasts us to the core, the true stuff of which we are made is revealed. Suffering lobs a hand-grenade into our self-centeredness, blasting our soul bare—but then, we can be better bonded to the Savior."

-Joni Eareckson Tada

Risk

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

-C.S. Lewis - "The Four Loves"

Swans

Luc Petton and his Swans opening tomorrow.  Interesting back story of the training involved to make it happen.

                    

Summer camp

Summer coming up. A worthwhile place for abused kids and kids within the foster care system. Royal Family Kids Camps, with camp locations across the country. More information available at their website -  Royal Family Kids.