Sunday Service

We had a great sermon at church yesterday.  A member gave a heart-wrenching, yet inspiring testimony of her spiritual walk over the last few years.  She spoke of her husband, who has bipolar disorder, and his suicide attempts, their children, job losses, the loss their dream home, and her battle with the breast cancer that has invaded her lymph nodes.  It was an amazing and courageous account of their last few years as a family, and how God has used these trials to draw her family closer together, but more importantly, closer to God.  I so needed to hear her story; it was like salve over my wounded heart.  I cried painful tears for most of the remaining sermon, which was also amazing.  Here's the link if you're interested in the sermon.

In the past, I haven't been a very good ambassador for Jesus when I'm at my lowest- in the muck and the mire of life.  I typically hide my head in the sand and escape, praying it will all be over with quickly.  I don't like suffering or feeling uncomfortable, or not knowing.  I don't like to wait.  But I know during the painful times, God is gently leading me, like a shepherd with a sheep that's gone astray-teaching me, trying to make me more like Him.  Or, He may be teaching someone close to me something through my example.  An example that I know most often falls short of God's desire.  Often I feel like I'm presented with the same trials over and over again, as if I obviously didn't "get it" the first time around.  And honestly, I'm sure I didn't.

I'm striving to get to a place where I don't "waste" the trials of life being preoccupied with myself and my problems.  That's clearly not what God had in mind for our lives, I'm sure.  Instead, I believe it's often a nudge (or in my case, a kick in the pants) to come on back to Him.  Not that suffering is punishment from God, because I don't believe that to be the case, necessarily.  But I know for me, when life is "good," it's easy to get caught up in the things of this world and ignore the things of the next.