There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. Romans 5:3-4 (MSG)
There are stretches of the journey when everything seems to go wrong. I’ve been feeling empathy for my youngest who recently, in the process of a few weeks, dropped her new phone in the toilet, cracked the LCD screen on her new laptop, then backed into someone pulling out of the parking lot from getting her car serviced. Sure, not one of these events is a tragic in a life and death context, but taken together they make for a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
The verses I pulled from today’s chapter have been a constant source of encouragement to me along particularly trying legs of life’s journey. Even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances, there is reason to shout our praise to God. There is progress in our pain. God is at work, growing us up. Maturity doesn’t come with comfort and ease. Wisdom is born in the midst of trial. Character is honed in refining fire.
Today, I’m reminded that God allows terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days for a bearable, wonderful, profitable, very good reason.
Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and jek-a-go-go