The Coming Joy

This continues to be an odd week.

It's one of the busiest weeks I've had in months, and I am feeling the pull of the growing exhaustion on my body.  I've probably taxed my limits, but it was to some extent unavoidable, and looking back, there isn't anything I'd eliminate from my schedule (well, maybe grocery shopping, if there was some sort of magic way food could appear in our fridge).  The moments shared with friends and at house church.

It's also been one of the weeks where I've been most intensely in what both my roommate and I jokingly refer to as "weird intercessor space" more deeply than I have been in a very long time.

There has been the news from Haiti.

And some other needs that have come to my attention.

And this ongoing theme of mothering, birthing, babies, children.  Which perhaps sounds a bit odd when you consider that I am 26 years old, and remain happily single.

Some time ago I think I blogged the following passage, but it has come back strongly to me today, and I find myself praying it back to God this morning, asking for patience and understanding as I process and listen and wait and pray.

John 16:21-23 (The Message)
When a woman gives birth, she has a hard time, there's no getting around it.  But when the baby is born, there is joy in the birth.  This new life in the world wipes out memory of the pain.  The sadness you have right now is similar to that pain, but the coming joy is also similar.  When I see you again, you'll be full of joy, and it will be a joy no one can rob from you.  You'll no longer be so full of questions.