I’ve been sitting waiting, wishing

When it’s hard, it’s hard. You know it’s hard. You feel it. You need to say it. You also know that your words have power. Should you talk about it? You need to play it out. I don’t believe that playing it out is ungodly. I think not playing it out and pretending, everything is perfect, while you are walking around hiding brokenness is. Pretending is stopping. It’s setting up camp in hell. Shame helps build that camp, but shame isn’t even real! It’s all in your mind. There is no shame. There is no suffering or brokenness that is new to God. If you’ve ever read any full book in the Bible you would most likely read some pretty messed up stuff. The Bible is full of brokenness, infidelity, incest, murder, idolatry, lust, betrayal... and punctuating it all is HOPE. Paul wrote something in Romans that is both counterintuitive and instructive: “We have glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Glory in our sufferings!!?!!! So counterintuitive and soooooo not something on your mind or heart when the $hit gets real!! Suffering produces hope, that’s instructive. Even if you aren’t a believer, think of the things you’ve been through and mastered. You are a warrior and your story of survival and how you did it offers hope to those who will encounter similar experiences. Everyone suffers something to some degree for some reason at some time and place in their lives. The important issue, then, is not whether we suffer but how. Does our suffering break us or make us? Does it cause us to turn back on how far we’ve come or does it strengthen us for what’s inevitably coming next? I know God will heal me; I’m just waiting on Him to do so. As I do so, I remember that even in pain, if nothing else, I can be of service, I’m giving hope to others through my story.