We all worry and many if not most of us have lots on our mind -- lots that could get us down, cause us grief... things that might happen; awful things that seem bound to happen. Or maybe we're just worriers who worry about much that is not worth worrying about. Said Mark Twain -- "I've known a great many troubles. Most of which never happened."

So there's that. But life can indeed be very difficult and we can well wonder how on earth things are going to turn out for us, tomorrow, next week, at the end of it all.

There can be no growth without pain. Anything worth doing will cost us - lots... energy, sacrifices, perhaps wealth and even a measure of health. Perhaps everything.

Said Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 'When Jesus bids us follow Him, He bids us come and die.'

Much preaching today promises something else, and this would be wrong. '... He bids us come and dine.''' But the good part is not yet. And we can pay now or pay later (he said, ripping off an old car battery commercial).

This video shows the promise - the promise that things will indeed work out -- work out well, for the best, for us and for our whole world. Words of Corrie Ten Boom are pertinent, as she kept faith even though she endured the terrible atrocities of Auschwitz, that her sister Becky and the rest of her family did not survive. And all for housing/harbouring Jews during the War... doing the right thing - the best thing in the worst of times... and it cost her everything. She talked about worry and she had a right to speak - truth.

And so does old Dame Julian, the ancient saint of Norwich in Norfolk, England. 'All shall be well,' she claimed. What kind of faith makes such a statement? All well at last, all well tomorrow, all well today. For we are safe at last in an Eternal embrace even when it does not seem or feel that way, when all the evidence seems to be to the contrary.

But people of faith think otherwise. My faith is in Jesus who endured agony that I might experience ecstasy - not yet (though there are rumours and hints and whiffs, some days even now); but one day, surely -- one day.

Because He lives (having been killed), I will live also. And so may anyone, any family, any community, any nation that trusts in His finished work for me, for us - for our world.

'All will be well. All will be well. And all manner of things will be well,' she said.

Indeed.

Created by Laurie Barber Tochar Studios
Music: Sea Change Emil G. Salt Spring Studios
Storyblocks Video