Ok. I'm going to talk about my brother again.

A few months ago, we went to buy things together, and we saw this packet of sour sweets. The kind that is sweet but is coated with a layer of sour stuff. He told me he wanted to eat those. I was stunned and asked him if he was sure. It took awhile before he convinced me to buy that packet of sweets, saying that he had tried it before, and liked it. He even assured me that the sourness would only last for a short while. Cost was not the issue. It was just that I could not believe he would even eat one of those!

That night, he took one of them, and I decided to try it together with him. Honestly, I was really afraid of putting one of those sweets into my mouth. So I asked him, "How is it?" His reply, "I feel like crying." It was so sour, that his feeling at that point of time was that he felt like crying. I tried it too, and indeed he was right in saying that the sourness was only for a short time. But the sweetness did come, and by then, all the sourness was forgotten.

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"I feel like crying" was what my brother said at a time when he tasted great sourness. These are the words that I have said a few times recently as there have been more and more to do, but with so little time at hand. It is painful, often lonely, and at that time, all I can say is "I feel like crying". With the sweet, the sweetness is sought after, and longed for when the taste of sourness is still strong. Now, as I struggle with my work, I feel the same. It is a great kind of sourness, so painful, and I am longing for the time when I would have these basic principles I'm learning now to become knowledge I own, and know how to apply.

This does not just apply with work. In every area of our lives in fact. The thing is, no matter how painful it is at the point of suffering, don't give up (that is, if what you are doing is worth doing).

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up
(Galatians 6:9)

g r a c e
11:14 AM