The Problem of Pain

{A friend loves in all times}

I am not one to have a lot of close friends. I am really too busy doing the work the Lord has laid on my heart to raise my children up to be godly soldiers for the faith, and being a helpmate to my dear husband. But what I do know is that my dearest friends in my life are the ones who have shared painful times with me. Anyone can enjoy good times with a friend, but only few are the true blue who stand through thick and thin and encourage when you are going through the darkest of times. That is where the true rubber hits the road. I have always joked that I need air conditioning and a pool so I will have a friend but truly, it is when you are in a fiery furnace and in the desert alone that you truly know who your friends are.

I am enjoying a book my best friend Jewels suggested to me, it is called Learning of God, readings from Amy Carmichael, by Stuart and Brenda Blanch

pg, 99: PAIN "But to what end is pain? I do not clearly know. But I have noticed that when one who has not suffered draws near to one in pain there is rarely much power to help: there is not the understanding that leaves the suffering thing comforted, though perhaps not a word was spoken; and I have wondered if it can be the same in the sphere of prayer. Does pain accepted and endured give some quality that would otherwise be lacking in prayer? Does it create that sympathy which can lay itself alongside the need, feeling it as thought it were personal, so that it is possible to do just what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said, "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body?""

This quote really hit home. Many times in my almost 30 years of marriage and parenting I have gone through serious physical pain and severe loneliness. I just need someone to say, keep the faith. But many have never hit this heartbreak hill I have been climbing and they seem to be calling me a baby, or a complainer, when I have been going through severe pruning and pain, and reaping much fruit in my dependence on God and his plan for my life. That is where a great friend comes in handy.
They tell you not to quit, that you can make it over the hill, with the Lord's help. They say it will be worth it all, even if the fruit will be many years off. That is when you need to surround yourself with people who have endured through tough circumstances and excelled, even if it is only through biographies or movies of great events and people.
Too many people today are only concerned about the convenient, the easy, the doable, not ruffling too many feathers, not the eternal long term goals of God. God has called me to a tough race, I want to win it for him, and I want to win it for him Big,and for the future generations, I want them to look back and say, Gods hand was really on her life and I am inspired by her faith and endurance. She went into the fiery furnace and was not burned.
Jesus is your best friend, sometimes he gives you ones with skin on, so you can get a glimpse of what heaven is like. I am thankful for my friends who were there when life hurt more than I could bear.

The most beautiful skies come after a storm; this is our sky tonight, it is a gift from God.

Whom the lord chastises he loves, he who did not give up his own son but gave him for us all, he is the one I worship.