Wednesday, December 29, 2010

1 Peter 4:12-13 - The Fiery Trial - sharing suffering and glory with Christ (Word Picture)

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Most "Word Pictures" I do because someone else requested them, or because of an event in someone else's life. This one sprang from one in my own.

A few weeks back, my dear wife was in the hospital getting treated for her migraines (she'd spent the previous 3 weeks never getting below "8" on the pain scale.) My mother was visiting family. I was home alone.

The fibromyalgia pain hit me harder than any pain had since I was walking along and my femur snapped. Even for someone accustomed to pain, this was INCREDIBLE.

I took all the meds I could, talked to my wife on the phone as long as I could, brought in Ambrose the Papillon. All through those dark, scary, lonely hours I kept thinking of this verse and its sister in chapter 1 (verses 6 & 7), and I kept thinking to myself Either this is true and its what is going on, or I have died and gone to hell.

Its hard for those of us who live in suffering to find meaning in it, much less hope or proof of God's love. This is one of the texts which most speaks to us in such times.

While my suffering was physical, it need not be for this text and this Word Picture to be applicable. I've known emotional and spiritual suffering of equal intensity to my current physical suffering. (I greatly prefer physical suffering to the other kinds!)

The 4x6 and other standards

This is now the 2nd Word Picture I've done which is standardized to print correctly at 4x6 without cropping issues. Since the original image was a stitched together panorama, this took more math than I thought I'd ever do in my life!

Similarly, it features the smaller file size and standardized credits information first seen in the Psa 46 Word Picture. The credits are differently placed in this one because the source was a panorama not a still picture.

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