I've prayed much for those caught up in the natural disasters around our nation last winter. In July 1995 we visited some friends in Florida just a short distance from Altamonte Springs where 14 people were killed by the tornado outbreak soon after midnight on Monday morning, February 23,1998. I've been thinking about how even a near-miss would affect people in the surrounding communities. To go to a town you are familiar with and see devastation all around is unsettling to say the least. The damage from such storms money-wise is great, but the scars left on people's lives can be incalculable.

This brings me back to the whole idea of suffering. It is a difficult topic to discuss, especially for Christians, because we know God has all power and could have prevented whatever caused the suffering. As I said in another article, I don't believe God is usually judging individuals (and neither should we!) when something like this happens.

How should we view suffering? I believe it is urgent for us Christians to understand that suffering is meant to mature us in our understanding of our own natural bent apart from God's work in our heart. Then, if we allow that understanding to move us to seek God Himself instead of just the solution to our problem, He will cleanse us and reveal Himself to us on a more intimate level. When we experience Him on this new level, we will begin to experience 2Cor 1:3-4. As we do, we are acting in effect as God's eyes, heart, hands and feet in the world.

It is in or just after the hardest times (if we yield to Him) that we most experience God's reality, and those times can draw us so close to Him that others, whether they believe in God or not, will surely know that we do. These are good fruits that can only benefit God's kingdom (and us) in the days ahead. The cost of this growth? Some very painful emotions, confusion, and much time before the Lord to cooperate with His Spirit in the tearing down of obstacles to growth in our lives.

My goal for this section is to be a real source of godly strength and comfort to those of you who have experienced devastating losses of all kinds in your lives. There is help and hope in God, but it's not help that covers over our feelings. It is help that acknowledges our feelings and goes on from there to let God into those hurt places to do His "inner surgery" so that we may be healed. - Is perfect emotional healing possible in this life? I don't believe so, but I do believe we can all be much more whole than we are now.

On a personal note, I need to tell you that I am not a professional counselor. My credentials are those of experience. I have suffered. I know what it is to lose people suddenly, and to be angry with God. I also know what it is to cope - to say, "I can handle this," all the while feeling I am dead inside. - That, friends, is the price of denial that festers for too long.

I know too the relief and cleansing that come when I finally face my feelings, experience them, give them to God in repentance, and receive in exchange His grace and mercy and strength to go on. It's not a bad deal - His strength is made perfect in my weakness (2Cor 12:9). God truly can give "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Why would our Father do that for us? Isaiah 61:3 tells us His purpose is that we "might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified." That's my goal, for God to be glorified in my life.

If this introduction upsets you, it might be wise to pray before going on. My desire is simply to share with you the grace I've experienced from God. If it "stirs something up" in you, it would be wise to find someone you can trust to talk with - God and/or someone who knows Him well enough not to condemn you. I know when I am going through something difficult, it helps greatly to confide in mature people who know how to pray. They can often help me to hear God more clearly when I am in turmoil. I pray this section bless you, and give you the courage to let God heal and strengthen the hurt places in your life.

*I think this section might be too intense for some preteens and early teenagers. I pray as God heals us Christian adults, that we will share with our children in age-appropriate ways to give them a godly foundation from which to deal with the trials that the Bible says come into all our lives.

Last Revised 08/17/98

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