Why should I carry on?

"Resilience is the ability to work with adversity in such a way that one comes through it unharmed or even better for the experience. Resilience means facing life’s difficulties with courage and patience – refusing to give up."

" You may have a fresh start every time you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down." Mark Pickford

I think one of the greatest miracles God performed in me was to teach me how to encourage myself in Him, how to grab Him with both hands and pick myself up. To teach me this, He brought me to a foreign country, away from my family and all that's familiar. He knew I would've never left out of my own decision, so He put this love for England in my heart and then He went a step further and brought my husband in my life. In this country, I learnt that I am never alone, that I have to grow up, that I have to stand up if I fall and that giving up is not an option for me. I had great teachers, their names are: Joseph, David, Jesus, Paul and Bat Melech.

I'll carry on talking about Joseph today, because we all love his story. Joseph's story is the story of the dreams coming true, a happy ending story and that's how we all look at it at a first glance. But there's more to it, and every time I read his story I seem to find something else that I missed. For me Joseph's story seems to be a sort of partnership between a boy and God- God did not give up o Joseph and Joseph did not give up on God. I love the way Moses starts writing the story of the nation of Israel: "This is the account of Jacob (Israel). Joseph..." (Genesis 37:2) Joseph was chosen to continue the story of the "eternal people", but this brought him problems from the start, because people looked at him and they could not see what God saw. It was the same with all the people that God choose. Because people can't see the true you, they force upon you a picture that they see. It is up to you whether you accept their picture, or you get stubborn enough to believe an image of you that you can't yet see from a God your eyes cannot behold and your hands cannot touch.

When his brothers threw him in the pit, amongst screaming and crying, Joseph probably asked God to get him out of there, but God didn't get him out. I had to understand that there will be many hard and painful things that God will not get me out of, no matter how much I will pray, and that the only answer I can have is "I will not give up!" I can't stop and I can't turn my back on Him. Joseph could have turned his back forever on God, tell Him: "What's the point of serving You, if You don't even listen to me?" But he did not give up on God and God did not give up on Joseph: "The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered...when his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favour in his eyes and became his attendant...the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph." (Genesis 39:2,3,5)

I can testify that if you hold on to Him for dear life, and you refuse to give up, the Lord blesses your life. When Potiphar's wife tries to tempt Joseph, he remembers the Lord and he refuses to give into sin: "How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?" (Genesis 39:9b) Joseph does not give up on his decision and refuses to sin against God and as a result... he "lands" in prison. It is very important when you do good and get a slap in the face for it, to remember that perhaps the picture is a lot bigger than you see and not to give up, that it might not look that way, but God is still with you: "The Lord was with him, He showed him (Joseph) kindness and granted him favour in the eyes of the prison warder. So the warder put Joseph in charge of all those who were held in prison, and was made responsible for all that was done there." (Genesis 39:21-22)

My belief is that when something is repeated several times in a chapter of the Bible, is because the Lord wants to make us pay attention to something. In this case, I think the repetition tells us: "I did not abandon Joseph. Were Joseph went, I went." After many years of "partnership", Joseph learns to recognise God in what happens to him, and gives God the place that is rightfully His. When later on Pharaoh's servants praise him for his ability to interpret dreams, Joseph tells them: "interpretations belong to God" (Genesis 40:8), when Pharaoh asks him for an interpretation for his terrible dreams, again Joseph says to him: "I cannot do it...but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires" (Genesis 41:16)
By now God was probably smiling when He heard Joseph. This man went from pain to pain, all he encountered from his fellow men was injustice, but somewhere along that road, Joseph met EL Elohe Israel (The God of Israel), and he was no longer able to give up. Joseph was a teenager when they sold him. Young enough for all to call him boy, but old enough for Jacob to send him to his brothers. When he became prime minister of Egypt, Joseph was 30 years old but all along this years he refused to give up. He called his first son Manasseh (Forget, in Hebrew) and he said: "It is because God made me forget all my trouble and my father's household." (Genesis 41:51)
I ask myself how badly did he miss his father all those years? I understand that pain so well. You can carry on for days and then all of the sudden it is as if this knife is stuck in your heart and refuses to go away. In my case I end up making a flight reservation right away, because I know it will not stop until I land in Romania. All that Joseph had as comfort was God and maybe a dream that one day he will see his father again. But God made him forget his pain. He called his second son Ephraim (Twice fruitful, in Hebrew) and he said: "It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering" (Genesis 41:52) From more or less 15 years of pain and injustice, this is all that Joseph chose to remember- that God helped him forget his pain and made him fruitful! He chose to praise God rather than meditate on the bitter pain. I love the moment, when Joseph finally sees the whole picture, when he perhaps gets his answer to the question that must've gone round and round in his head for years: "Why, God? Why?" He tells his brothers: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (Genesis 50:20) He suffered all that to save a whole nation from starvation.

Yes, he had a dream that maybe didn't make to much sense to him and yes, God fulfilled those dreams He gave Joseph when he was just a boy, but I think what will always remain with me from Joseph's story is his refusal to give up. He did not give up on waiting for God and God did not give up on him. I was stubborn all my life, but I also was a quitter that hated and ran from pain. Why have I called what God has done in me a miracle? Because in His infinite wisdom, somehow God took my stubbornness, molded it and turned it into refusal to give up. I don't know what your story is, and I don't want to sound patronising at all, but if God has done this with an arrogant boy and a quitter like me, I know He will do it with anybody, if He sees just a little glimpse of will in there.

Be blessed.

Emanuela