One of the greatest misconceptions people have about pain is that time heals. This couldn’t be further from the truth! If time healed, people in prison would be the most whole people in the world. Over the course of many trials and tribulations, I have learned the value of finding joy in the process of my pain and of looking forward to the outcome. Joy—or the promise of joy—gives you the ability to face seemingly impossible circumstances and helps you to thrive when life is hard. Remember, James tells us to consider it all joy when we face trials because of the fruit that is produced in us.
Suffering
Oswald Chambers
We all know people who have been made much meaner and more irritable and more intolerable to live with by suffering: it is not right to say that all suffering perfects. It only perfects one type of person…… the one who accepts the call of God in Christ Jesus.
Charles R. Swindoll
When you suffer and lose, that does not mean you are being disobedient to God. In fact, it might mean you’re right in the centre of His will. The path of obedience is often marked by times of suffering and loss.
Sally McClung
On the days when the grief is there, I know that joy will also come. It’s easy to feel that I’ll always be sad because of the weight of things. But that’s not true. The sad times, the times of grief, are hard, but our loving Father will walk with us through them. He’ll bring good – joy!! – into our lives in ways that only He can. How grateful I am for His lovingkindness!
Wintley Phipps
It is in the quiet crucible of your personal private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given in compensation for what you’ve been through.
Elisabeth Elliot
To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then and ‘be safe’?” That’s the only alternative, really. But locking ourselves up and never facing another person won’t fix what’s really going on in our souls.
Russ Ramsey
We ought not begrudge anyone (ourselves included) the right to experience the pain, fear and sorrow that comes when someone they love suffers. We are made to carry each other’s burdens, which means to be burdened ourselves by the sufferings and sorrows of others. This is nothing short of an expression of love.
Richard Wurmbrand
Even the best of Christians are troubled by the question, “Why does an almighty God send, or at least allow, suffering?” When you are nagged by thoughts like this, say to yourself, “I am still in elementary school. When I graduate from the University of Christian life, I will understand His ways better and doubts will cease.
Elisabeth Elliot
I realised that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.
C. S. Lewis
In Gethsemane, the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not.