Endurance!

Tea aficionados!

Romans 5:3,4”……we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope..”

Here’s a message for tea aficionados! If you have a crush for tea, remember, after careful hand-plucking “two leaves and a bud”, there is a five stage process where the harvest is withered, rolled, fermented, fired, sorted and graded. The flavor is brought to the fore through crushing, thrusting, pressing and finally fermenting! Behind every refreshing sip of tea that we take, there has been a lot of tossing and rolling! The good news! The more you are rolled, pressed, tossed and pressed, the more juice comes to the fore! Glory to Jesus!

Friend, God at times does not come to your rescue immediately but allows you to go through turmoil, agony, heavy burden, persecutions and much more to make you strong and mighty! Believe me, you would come out refined, purified, stronger, humbler and more lovelier!

Recently we organized ‘Abide in Christ – training camp for soldiers in Christ’ in Hyderabad for the first time; we lacked infrastructure, trained team and volunteers. When we had just a week for the three days camp, we had still not booked accommodation quarters or food caterers; things looked negative and gloomy all around, whatever we had booked also were getting cancelled. Eerie time! However, we managed to get them done, but unexpectedly cleaners and helpers ditched us at the last moment. The humor is that I am the main speaker of the camp!!!!! Imagine! None knew the comedy that we were facing behind the screen; I would finish one session of the meeting and someone would come running and tell me, ‘we are facing shortage of food ’ or ‘the cleaner did not come’ - it was nightmare. We had just finished a laborious kids camp for one whole week handling around 100 kids at the church and then this ‘training camp’ followed immediately. I stayed at the campsite swinging in action – not without pain though. I was under severe pressure and strain! My maid at home and school did not turn up for one whole week during the days of the camp; hence my home front also suffered. This was just too much! My work force was nil! We were left with just our family, I wondered why! Why did God not send me helpers? I did muse! At the same time, I was also getting bitter about ‘why this person did not turn up or that person did not call.’ While I was just speaking out my feelings to my daughter she said, ‘amma, may be God is making you stronger and preparing you for something higher and bigger!’ I got the answer. I got delivered from choked emotions, bitter feelings and mental torture. Glory to Jesus! This training camp of making soldiers for Christ was no small job where I had to minister to pastors, leaders and servants of God. God’s training and preparation starts with affliction! You get molded and humbled into a right vessel under His mighty Hands! The best flavor comes out when you endure the process of crushing, pressing, tossing and rolling! Are you listening? Stay calm.

An untested novice goes through the process of experience, training, beating, humiliation, lack, criticism, pressure, strain and finally comes out as a champ that can now shoulder anything!

Can we say like Apostle Paul “we rejoice in our sufferings!” Remember the crushing that happens behind every sip of tea that you take!