Journey Through Suffering

I just had an amazing visit from a friend from college. When she walked into my office today we realized that it had been 24 years since we’d seen each other. As with all true friendships, we just picked up where we left off. It was a wonderful couple of hours of catching up and comparing notes on our spouses and children, work, ministry.

Out of all the things that we talked about it was our journey through suffering that sticks out the most. I had the opportunity to share with her all that God had brought me and my family through over the time since we’d seen each other and she did the same. As she shared her story I was struck with the consistency of her focus that was a common thread in every description of where God had taken her. After telling me about her miscarriages and her husband’s job loss and her mother’s illnesses she took me down the road of her Hodgkin's lymphoma. It has been a very difficult road and life is now different in many ways, but her focus was not on her difficulties, but on what God has done, in through and for her in the midst of a very difficult time for her and her family.

As I listened to her talk and watched her countenance I saw a focus in her eyes that was set on the “God of her days”! Although she had journeyed through many dark days, she still gave praise to God. Many questions were and are still unanswered, but her focus was confirmed when she turned to my bookshelf and pointed out a plaque that I have with the lyrics to the hymn “It is well with my soul” etched on it. She said, “As I’ve talked with my husband about the uncertainty of my future, I told him that whatever happens that that song, my favorite song, must be a part of my funeral, whenever that may be.” Her treasure was not in her health, or in the security of comfortable days. Rather her hope and her treasure remains in the fact that God is good, Sovereign and right in the midst of her trials by her side.

As we go through this next week, let’s be proactive and see each day in the same way. Because if our treasure lies in the power and person and favor of our mighty God our hearts will be in the same place as we face the dark and difficult days that will come into each of our lives.

“Living for Jesus through earth's little while
My dearest treasure the light of His smile...”
Thomas Obediah Chisholm