Joy to the Work: Sweat

I have noticed a precipitous drop in my pageviews in the last couple of weeks. It figures because I haven't been posting as often. Barely at all. Work has been challenging. Good, but challenging nonetheless. Even after a quarter of a century in working with teens, I still get tested and tried daily. Every kid is different, so the job is always new. Makes the position as a school counselor interesting, and did I mention challenging? On the cool front, Bierkergaard passed 100,000 pageviews this week. I guess that means something. I have learned to persevere through times of challenge with the blog. Sometimes I have to let it lay fallow for a period. It is not my first priority.

Yesterday at school, I think I wore a dress shirt that I had worn previously without washing in-between. I believe I made a mistake and put it back on the rack without laundering. Or, maybe yesterday was just particularly stressing. I had a very difficult situation to deal with and my sweat reeked of neurons frying. I was pushed to my limits and a situation teetered on the edge of losing control. I feared a nuclear-like reaction.

We got it back under control. But barely. A mere thread. Today, I went to look at the Bible and searched the word sweat. Do you know--I sure didn't--that sweat is only mentioned three times in the Bible? One, God tells Adam about the Curse: The sweat of thy face (Genesis 3:19), (2) an obscure verse in Ezekiel that reads like a Levitical Law, and  (3) Jesus sweating beads of blood in His prayer of agony in the Garden facing His death (Luke 22:44) . I am not sure what God is saying in closing the "sweat" loop between the two Gardens, but it is clear that the first sweat of struggle that Adam has to obtain his bread is actually pointing to the Bread of Life humanity needs for our soul, Jesus, and how his blood obtains us for that gratis. It costs us nothing. It costs him everything. Blood, like sweat, dripping from His face. In the Garden, planting the seeds of reconciliation between God and man.

Yesterday when the situation wobbled between peace and war. I was praying, I was sweating. I was asking God to take over and take control. By His grace, the situation came to a calm end.
    

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