Have you wondered what God is doing in your difficult circumstances? Why God allows suffering into our lives? It’s natural to ask why and to want to see some benefit from our suffering, because it makes us feel better if we can see good coming out of the difficult situations in our lives. It makes it seem more “worth it” when we can see a purpose for it all.
If you’ve ever wondered what God is up to, then I have good news for you. God IS doing something. He is doing something very good, indeed.
When you need hope, you’ll grab at anything to get it. It’s a vulnerable place to be. And it’s definitely not a fun place to be.
I feel like I live in a place of needing constant hope. Chronic pain will do that to you. It would be tempting and easy to say, “Look to God for your hope because that is where all our answers are found!”
And that’s true, but I would like to be a little more practical than that. I’d like to show you one way God is helping me find hope, so you can learn to find it, too.
Hope is elusive because it seems to be closely tied to our circumstances, which can change from minute to minute. Our circumstances can easily dictate our emotions, which can easily “boss” around our hope, making it hard to find as our circumstances shift and change.
So, our hope has to be grounded in something different than our circumstances. Our hope has to be grounded in the Word of God.
The Bible can give us so much hope, if we will look there! But we don’t always remember to go there, so let’s go there now and remember what beautiful hope God can give us.
And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. (1 Peter 5:10)
If you are human, then at some point in your life you have probably asked the four words, “Is it worth it?”
Is this marriage worth it with all its difficulties?
Is this job worth it with all the stress?
Is this friendship worth it with all the drama?
Is this ministry worth it with all it takes out of me?
Is finishing school worth it with all the work involved?
Is this treatment worth it with all the side effects?
Is this life with chronic illness worth it if nothing ever changes for the better?
And it is when we are faced with those questions, that pain and fatigue scream at us a resounding, “NO!”
What do you do when you are in this situation?
When you live with chronic pain, every day your body screams “QUIT!” How do you manage to keep going despite the pain, fatigue, and discouragements that threaten to overwhelm both body and soul? Continuing to put one foot in front of the other when experiencing daily pain and exhaustion is not easy, but it is possible when you adopt thoughts, attitudes, and habits that help you cope instead of quit.
