Hi, friends! I am SO happy to be joining you all today! My
name is Amy. I’m a nanny to 4 kids by day and a calligrapher by night. I live
with my husband of (almost!) 3 years, my aging Grandma, and our adorable little
pup, Sugar. It’s a crazy life and we live it just outside of the Richmond area.
I had the amazing opportunity to be on staff with Cru for 2 and a half years in
the Tidewater area and I miss it every day.
While I never envisioned I’d be a nanny for 4 kids, it has
been so interesting what they have taught me about God over the last 2 years. Today,
I want to share with you what God showed me through a 6-year-old’s callouses.
(Yes, you read that right…callouses. Buckle up, friends. It’s about to get
good!) I walked into the house of where I nanny, feeling weary and worn down.
Heavy burdens filled my heart. The moment I walked in, one of the girl’s, Abby,
was so excited to tell me about how she got her first callous on her foot. Take
a second to imagine the following being said with 6-year-old excitement (like a
6-year-old on Christmas morning excitement), “I’m my daddy’s girl!! I got my
first callous last night!! Bring on the callousesssss!!!” as she ran to the back
door to go outside, barefoot. You should
know this family spends a great deal of time at the beach and therefore, they
often go barefoot. Her dad, especially, goes barefoot any chance he gets. I
thought it was both hysterical that she was excited about callouses and adorable
that she wanted to be like her daddy.
I later learned Abby’s dad had explained to her that in the
beginning, it would hurt to go outside barefoot. He told her that she’d eventually
build callouses on her feet, and after that, she’d be able to go outside
barefoot, pain free. She trusted her daddy, even when he told her she’d
experience pain. She believed him when he explained that what was on the other
side of the pain was good.And she was joyful in being able to
identify with her father through that experience. With her words stuck in my
head, I began wondering if I felt that way about my Heavenly Father. Did I find
joy in the opportunity to relate to Christ, even in the painful, burden-filled
situations? Did I trust Him and His promise that there was good on the other
side of those sufferings?
My Sunday school class is studying Philippians this summer
and it.has.been.SO.good. Seriously, go read it. And reread it. (As a side note,
I’ve been listening to Philippians in my car on the way to and from work, with
an app on my phone and it’s been amazing how much I’m retaining through listening to it over and over again. It
starts and ends my day with a mindset focused on God and has really helped me
to hide His Word in my heart. I highly suggest giving it a try.) Paul, like
Abby, wanted to identify with his Father. In Philippians 3, He says he wants to
know Christ, in “the power of His resurrection and in the participation of His sufferings.” Paul felt joy (He uses the word
‘joy’ or ‘rejoice’ 16 times in the short book of Philippians WHILE in prison),
counting everything else a loss, at the opportunity to relate to Christ, in
both Christ’s power but also in Christ’s deep, hard, and painful sufferings.
“But whatever were
gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I
consider everything a loss because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all
things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of
my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith
in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of
faith. I want to know Christ—yes,
to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings,
becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the
resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:7-11
It’s a crazy thing God promises us, that we could
possibly find any kind of joy in relating to Him in our sufferings. But not
only is there joy to be found, God also promises good to come from it. Again
like Abby, Paul understood that what came from the pain was good. In Romans 8:28 Paul
writes, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for
good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” When God says all
things, He means ALL THINGS. There is not one wasted hurt, if you are a
follower of Christ. Do you struggle to find joy in the midst of suffering? Have
you ever had a hard time believing God would work out your tough situation for
good? I think we struggle with these things because our definition of good and
God’s definition of good are often very different. While we may desire
happiness, safety, or riches, that’s not how God defines of good. If you read
the verses following Romans 8:28, you’ll see that God’s idea of working things
together for good means conforming us into the image of His Son, Jesus. We see
that idea again in the verses above in Philippians. Paul talks about the
surpassing worth of knowing Christ. He desires to gain Christ and be found in
Him, even if that means he has to go through suffering to attain those things. We
have a unique opportunity to relate to and identify with Christ when we go
through hard times. Joy is found as we inch closer to knowing Christ more fully,
by sharing in experiences that He himself also went through, and then by resting
in the promise that God is at work, transforming us into the image of His Son.
