Today’s scripture: Psalm 30:11-12 (ESV-text and audio) (KJV) (The Message) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Ben Lamb):
My early years were rather smooth sailing as far as major emotional and physical traumatic events were concerned. It was easy for me to buy into the spoon-fed notion that a Christian was supposed to be happy and joyful all of the time.
Then, in my early 30’s, a series of significant events continued to keep coming my way, both physically and emotionally. I’m nearly 50 now. I’d be lying if I claimed that I’ve ever said of that period of life, “Golly gee, God, it’s been loads of fun going through so much!”, but I can honestly say something else.
Since I did go through those challenges, in retrospect I can see that I now have some gifts that I would otherwise not have:
- Knowing the heartache of losing close relatives and friends during both long and short illnesses enables me to offer attempts at consoling others who are experiencing similar circumstances. Some words are especially soothing in certain situations. People who haven’t experienced such losses first-hand can sometimes unknowingly say odd things.
- Understanding exactly what extreme physical pain can be like (now greatly reduced by multiple surgeries) has given me a degree of compassion for others’ well-being that I previously was unable to comprehend. If someone in pain is sharp-tongued with me, I’m more able to attribute it to that person’s pain because I’ve been the sharp-tongued one before.
- A series of birth defect discoveries and development of a few more permanent illnesses (all non-fatal fortunately; just necessitating dietary changes and daily medications) have made me appreciate the sacrifices that others have to go through every day, yet don’t whine and complain about. I look to them and try to do the same. What’s the word? Oh, yes: patience. Such a foreign concept at times!
As stated earlier, I doubt that I’ll ever get down on bended knee and say a Prayer of Thanksgiving for Disease X or Relative Y’s Death. However, I choose to give thanks for gifts that I did receive such as the three mentioned above, plus some others. It may sound weird or even pseudo-martyrdom-ish to say this, but I’m now glad that my life hasn’t stayed all nice and super-smooth sailing all these years. Otherwise, I’d have not known the depth to which God could grow me!
Thought for the day: Thank you, God for growing me. I may not see anything good at the time of a particular hardship, but I believe that eventually I can see something beneficial for your sake.
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.