Working away

What are you working hard at today? Is it your child's bad attitude, or moving into a new house, or maybe the challenges of your marriage as our friends at Girltalk and Covenant Life are writing about? Right now I am sitting at my work on lunch break, waiting for my husband to rescue his wife from the woes of hypoglycemia. I have been working hard at providing nutrition support services to Chandler Regional Hospital all week for the dietitian that is on vacation.
It can be easy to become discouraged when I arrive home after a full day and a workout at the gym next door, to the added responsibilities of taking care of my home and husband. I also find myself saddened at the lives of my patients who are suffering. There have been many around me lately who are suffering. On Monday I broke down sobbing, realizing that these things touch me deeply-- my friend's baby with luekemia, a young friend coming home from a bone marrow transplant, a friend who lost a baby-- and all my elderly patients whose lives are ridden with disease. You can see the despair in their eyes and in their words. The sadness and despair started to creep into my heart, coloring the struggles I battle within my own life.
But through the counsel of friends, I am working hard at seeing God through these circumstances. Janis gave me a wonderful resource in Octavius Winslow's Morning Devotions. I thought I would share his perspective on both the "deep waters" of life and the struggles of work, whether it be spiritual work or physical labor:

To see one advancing in holiness; thirsting for God; the heart fixed in its solemn purpose of entire surrender; cultivating higher views; and aiming for a loftier standard; to behold him, perhaps, carving his way to his throne through mighty opposition, "fightings without; fears within;" striving for the mastery of some besetting sin; sometimes foiling and sometimes foiled; sometimes with the shout of victory on the lip, and sometimes with the painful consciousness of defeat bowing down the heart; yet still onward; the needle of the soul, with slow and tremulous, but true and certain movement, still pointing to its glorious attraction- God; faith that can never fail; and hope that can never die; and love that can never be quenched; hanging amid their warfare and in all their weakness upon the "nail fastened in a sure place"; how is Christ, our sanctification, glorified in such a saint! ~ August 24

In the light of this truth, cultivate loving and kindly views of God. Ever view Him, ever approach Him, and ever transact your soul's affairs with Him, in and through Jesus. He is the one Mediator between God and your soul. God your Father may now be leading you through deep and dark waters. His voice may sound roughly to you. His dim outline is, perhaps, all that you can see of Him. His face seems veiled and averted; yet deal with Him now in Christ, and all your hard thoughts, trembling fears, and unbelieving doubts shall vanish. In Jesus every perfection of God dissolves into grace and love. With your eye upon the cross, and looking at God through that cross, all the dark letters of His providence will in a moment become radiant with light and glory. That God, who has so revealed Himself in Jesus, must be love, all love, and nothing but love, even in the most dark, painful, and afflictive dealings with His beloved people! ~August 23