Rejoice to do good.

Those words from Ecclesiastes 3:12 have been easy to obey this month with the release of Sharing Love Abundantly in Special Needs Families, which I co-wrote with Dr. Gary Chapman. Yeah, he’s the love languages guy. So I have plenty to rejoice about these days.

But when I was a kid surreptitiously carrying my dad’s urinal to the empty in the church bathroom or feeling the stares of neighbor kids as I wheeled him around the block, the command to rejoice to do good stuck in my craw.

After the birth of our first child, my reaction to the rejoice to be good thing would have been throw my Bible across the room.
If I’d had time to read my Bible.
Which I didn’t thanks to sleep deprivation,
and atypical baby care like pumping breast milk 6 times a day to pour down his feeding tube,
and way too many 240 mile round trips from the remote town where we lived to the doctor’s office.
All of which prevented the throwing of my Bible.
And proves that Romans 8:28 is true.
God does work all things to good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.

Back to rejoice to do good thing. My point is this.

Throughout my childhood, when Mom, my siblings, and I cared for Dad we were doing great good. My husband and I also did great good caring for our son during the hard first years of his life. In both situations, we had no idea we were doing good. We were just doing what loving families do–we were taking care of our family members who couldn’t care for themselves.

To read the rest of this post, please visit the Hope Anew website.

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