Just Dig Deep and Bear It

When ...

• Your child wakes you an hour early screaming for you.  
• You catch a nasty look.
• Accusing voices sneak into your head ... "I can't believe you just said that.  You're pretty stupid, aren't  you?"
• You're five hours on the road and still four hours from home.
• The throw up won't stop.
• You don't know where the money is going to come from.
• The ... temptation ... is calling.  Calling.  Sweetly and subtly calling for you.
• Your heart's like to break from missing him / her so much.
• The pain won't let you sleep.

We recently tilled up a quarter of the sod in our back yard to prepare the earth for flowerbeds and a vegetable garden.  Some parts of the lawn, where the grass hadn't grown too deep, were easy to till.  The sharp blades cut down quickly through the green thatch, into the virgin soil below.  In other parts, the grass was more stubborn.  Established and thick, the roots reached deep into the earth, creating a lacing  network of tough tendrils that clung obstinately to the dirt.  We literally tilled one corner for two hours, before deciding we'd take our chances and just put in the flower bed.  

Now, a month later, that same corner is overgrown with thick, lush grass.  Somehow, the roots had survived, and sent forth shoots as hearty as ever.  We should have stayed in that spot, digging and digging and digging, until we had gotten deep enough to undercut the last root.  

Do I let adversity dig out the roots in my heart?  When it comes, do I see it as an opportunity to dig one layer deeper into those ugly things that stubbornly send their shoots up?  

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.  James 1:2-4