suffering

Recently I read an entry on a devotional blog about the upside down hope that we have. The entry came from Dayspring, and while I get e-mails from Dayspring that regularly direct me to the blogs, I never open them, but on this particular day, I opened the e-mail and read the blog entry. The entry was based on Romans 5:3-4--Not only so but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. The author's take on this verse is that in God's economy, we suffer first, persevere, build character and then have hope. However, in our economy, we typically hope first. For further reading on this, you can visit the blog at http://blog.dayspring.com/2009/12/a-different-kind-of-hope-part-three.html.

Right now my family is suffering and hearts are breaking as my mom undergoes health testing. I will not disclose the details of her tests and all that without permission, but she is having scans today to see if she can have surgery. Julia and I are home today as Julia is fighting strep again. Where two or more are gathered in His name, God promises to be present, so Julia and I prayed this morning for a scan that is miraculously, mysteriously, and divinely clean. Of course we didn't leave out Julia, Zach, and Andy in our prayer as they are all feeling rather yucky right now. I am asking everyone to pray for my mom and my family during this trying time. The good news is that God is granting my mom peace in these circumstances. On Saturday my family gathered at our church after services and had my mom anointed by the elders. It was a precious time together, and Mom has expressed again and again how grateful she was that everyone could be there. We all went out to dinner afterwards, and it was a very nice time. We do all know that God is still in the business of miracles. Simply reading some of the previous entries in this blog reveals that, so we suffer and try to persevere so that we might eventually cling to hope.