trial

“To really surrender, then, we need to stop measuring our trials against our comforts, and instead measure our trials against their potential to draw us nearer to God and to make us more like Christ.”

Gary Thomas

The past two weeks have been filled with wonderful times with my family. They have also been filled with seeing friends go through some very hard times. Death, serious illness. The emotions of these situations seem to be heightened during the holidays. There seems to be an extra sting in them.

These kinds of trials are serious. And, it is times like these that we may question what God is doing, or maybe even ask “Where is He?”. It is easy to think that he has withdrawn from us. We desperately want to sense Him, hear from Him. And we just want to move away from the difficulty.

If this is a place where you find yourself, consider not asking, merely, “Where is God?” but “Where is God in the midst of this pain I am in?” There is much we can learn about ourselves and about God during times when nothing else makes much sense. He is there, holding us in the pain. He is closer to us than our breath.

Grace and peace,
Deb