Good morning…
On Tuesday morning, I received two emails, back to back.
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Good morning, Sue,
It has been a while since I have reached out to you, but know that I am a faithful reader who finds a link to God every morning within your thoughts.
However, yesterday was particularly meaningful, truly God sent, as I slipped last week, dislocated my ankle and fractured several bones in my left foot. Facing surgery next week and a long recovery into the spring, I was having a pity party before I opened your message based on Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, We Suffer And Survive.
Bullet points 4,5,7 and 8 are particularly apt as I am entering my own season of suffering but also, as I realized with your words in my heart, my season of opportunity. Forced to remove myself from my daily life of meetings, errands and tasks, might I use this time to find deeper meaning to my life? Might I take time to focus on inner strength as I work to maintain my physical strength and ability to manage a walker and scooter and crutches while only using one leg? Might I become more aware of the needs of others and how I can respond/help instead of bemoaning what I am missing and what I can’t do?
I am blessed with good health, strong arms to hold me, both my own and those of my husband, and the financial stability to order whatever Amazon might offer to make this time easier. Excellent medical care and dear friends to bring lunch and dinner add to my gratitude list.
I have much to learn and I am grateful that yesterday, you and God showed me that on this rainy morning here in Cumming there are silver linings in the clouds, and the sun, like the moon, is just waiting every day to be revealed.
Blessings on you and each dear reader as they face their own uneven journey.
Mary Helen
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Suffering takes various forms in our life, doesn’t it? Sometimes physical. Sometimes emotional. Sometimes relational. Sometimes financial. Sometimes spiritual. Sometimes life serves up a big ‘ole pot of soup, with different forms of suffering simmering together.
I opened the next email from a longtime friend, and through the creative artistry of Austin Kleon, God continued our conversation.
“I’ve been thinking lately about Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning ,” Kleon explains. “He writes a lot about soup in that book. Soup was life in the concentration camps. A cigarette could be traded for a bowl. Cooks would favor some prisoners by ladling from the bottom of the pot for bits of potato or peas, while shorting others by skimming off the top broth. The men told jokes about how they envisioned attending dinner parties in the future where they would suddenly forget themselves and beg the hostess to serve the soup ‘from the bottom!'”
When life dishes out for us a season of suffering, might we dig down deep to savor tasty tidbits “from the bottom” of our soul?
It is better to eat soup with someone you love than steak with someone you hate (Proverbs 15:17, TLB).
…Sue…
