I call the cruddy days, “soap-dish days.” As a college freshman, I was mid-heartbreak, behind on everything, and had lost an election, when I dropped my soap in the shower. Leaning to grab it, I hit my head and finally burst into tears. “Rejoice always,” our scripture says. It seems impossible! How do you rejoice on the soap-dish days? Or the days that are darker, scarier, lonelier than the soap-dish days?

But our scripture also says, “Hold fast to what is good.” If we hang on to the good news of God’s grace, to the ways we have seen God’s power in the crashing ocean, and the ways we have encountered God’s mercy in a friend’s perfect words, then on the days when the bad stuff won’t let us go, there is joy still to be had. We rejoice despite the hard stuff because we know that’s not the whole story. The story of Christ’s life is that God’s love wins. No matter what crud the world serves up, this is our comfort and our joy.

By Shelli Latham from D365