life, life and more life

For the past year I’ve had verses from 2 Corinthians 4 hanging by my bed:

...We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal...

Recently, something in me has had to die and it's a been rather painful death. I was on the train, grinding my teeth over it and journaling it out, when it hit me: *it's never only death.* There is always resurrection! Sometimes things die in order to be resurrected in a more beautiful form—like a dream or a desire or a ministry. But even if something must die for real, something else will spring to life because of that death, something much better. It never ends at death, it always becomes more, fuller life! Even though I am being given over to death for Jesus' sake, somehow His life will also be revealed in me, and I believe often in the very place where I have died.