heat wave

It is so hot and humid here that my entire bed thinks it's a hot water bottle.

I got about three and a half hours of sleep last night. The long awake hours I occupied by reading exalted Christian literature. The result? This morning, I am an exalted Christian grouch. Brings me back to the whole conundrum of being both flesh and spirit: someone who wants to live radiantly, but gets clouded and puddled by lack of sleep and too much heat. The ideal meets my bedroom, the sauna, and the results are not pretty.

Last night (before I succombed to trying to sleep) I watched The Hiding Place with some friends. One of the things that always struck me in the story was how awful the women could be to each other... here they were in this cruel, friendless place, and they were so wrapped up in their own needs that they couldn't reach out in friendship to one another. I've always felt sort of disappointed in them. I want to believe that adversity brings out the natural nobility in people. The truth is that more often it shows us what's really on the inside... and nobility isn't quite the right word.

I am not trying to compare our current Ontario heat wave with what those women went through, and so many others have suffered. But there's a principle that still remains the same: when times get tough, do we allow our emotions to run us, or do we lean on God? On the flip side, do we give ourselves the grace to be human, or beat ourselves up because we don't measure up to our ideals?

Adversity may not make shining lights out of most of us, but it does allow God to work in a special way if we'll let Him. Adversity really does help us to grow in the image of the Son: in patience, in temperance, in graciousness, in endurance. So today I thank Him for the heat wave, and ask Him to use it in my life.