It was an email from an old friend. Someone I look up to for all that they've been able to do and live in ministry abroad. This is a spiritual giant. I have heard the stories and seen the scars their lives carry from their great triumphs and losses. They have lost and lived through such devastation; the kind like Job, that you hope only happens once in a lifetime.
I'm reading Job right now. The chronological Bible has it in the beginning, right next to 'the Beginning'. Job is a book that I feel kindred to. I have lived and lost, and shouted at God through it, and then seen God move, repent, and carry on with thankfulness for the life I can move forward with.
What's hard to explain is this idea of continued suffering. I found myself this week reading about yet another hard time for this lovely family. It made me really sad, and then just really angry that they were dealing with loss on another more painful level.
I sent back an note with some scripture and a testimony of what God pulled us through. It felt a bit hollow, really, like there must be more than this life of misery. I wanted to be rejoicing with them for what God was doing, not commiserating with them for the obvious pain of their hearts in their current situation.
I said in my note that I wouldn't trade what my suffering led me to; a greater relationship with Jesus. Well, isn't that what we pray for? Answers to prayer sometimes comes through intense trials, followed by more trials. Obviously not for everyone, but character development can come at a high price.
What I came back to was HOPE! It may not make sense, but hear me out. I was listening to some friends here talk about how they couldn't imagine having a child of theirs die, putting a dog down was hard enough. Something inside me kind of woke up. My spirit woke up. What would I do if a child died? Mine did! I grieved and I moved forward. I grieved some more, and slowly began to live again. That grief isn't in the forefront of my mind anymore. There's now part of me in heaven that I'm looking forward to seeing and meeting. It happened so long ago that my perspective on the loss has changed me from feeling grief to feeling hope for what's still to come in eternity.
See, HOPE is not temporal, it's in the eternal. God has promised we will have suffering. We will have trials. My hope is that through them I will grow closer to God. That I won't take up an offense for someone else that is suffering, but that I will take the time to pray and lean into Jesus. In the end my relationship with him is what will last forever.
If in suffering we learn how to be more like Jesus we become only more of the person we're supposed to be, there's not a loss in suffering. In suffering there's gain. Gain which will hopefully make a powerful impact in the world that we live in, because we're not walking wounded, but walking healed.
This is not the part where I say I want to embrace suffering, no way. This is the part where I say I don't want to fear it. I want it to make me into the MORE LIKE JESUS that I'm after.
Join me this week praying for B & L, suffering is not fun. God does offer his peace and joy, and I pray that it's poured out over them. Over you and the hard times you've walked through. I pray that only the good is kept and the bitter is left behind as we move forward towards God.
Yes, I do have good things to report too... more on that later. Love you!
