In another ironic twist (besides releasing my kids book set in the now devastated area of our Western North Carolina home this week), an essay I wrote a while ago on the theme of FORTITUDE also just released…

We can tend to over romanticize the people who exhibit this virtue, especially in times of severe trial.

Throughout history, the virtue of fortitude has been portrayed powerfully in art—sometimes as a man, sometimes as a woman. The sculpture “Fortitude” by John van Nost the Younger stands high atop a granite gateway at Dublin Castle. Relaxed and looking casually off in the distance, the young warrior holds a spear upright in one hand; at his feet, a lion cowers. At another gate, this time in Vienna, Fortitude is depicted as a female warrior, standing beside a sculpture of Constance and drawing a sword from the sheath at her side.

But in his letter to the church in Corinth, the apostle Paul paints what we’d consider a pretty hideous self-portrait of himself after what he has suffered for following Jesus.

I’m not sure if my essay will encourage you, but after the last couple of weeks in WNC and in other areas of our life, I find the words “bearing the image of dust and heaven” to be even truer to me than when I wrote them.

I invite you to read it at Cultivating Oaks Press: Bearing the Image of Dust and Heaven