When this ministry began several years ago, my two main focuses were to help others know how to walk more compassionately alongside someone who was grieving a loss. And to help those who were grieving to do so in a healthy, biblical manner, hopefully resulting in some level of healing.
More recently, as God gives me topics to share with you, I find they are often broader, Christian-living topics, which I hope can be helpful no matter where we are on our life’s journey.
But occasionally I like to get back to the original roots of this ministry and this week’s topic will attempt to do just that.
There’s not a single person reading this blog who hasn’t been touched in some way by a difficulty in their life. It could range from the fairly trivial and fleeting to the catastrophic and permanent. Maybe you’re in the middle of a hardship today.
The point I want to make applies to everyone suffering a loss, and everyone looking in on someone’s loss. We all play both roles at some stage of our lives, weaving back and forth between the two.
To a small degree or to a massive degree, those experiences change us … forever.
OK, I know that sounds a bit dramatic, and might be more appropriate for the catastrophic end of that spectrum, but hear me out.
Who we become in our life, from our birth until our death, is a culmination of all that lands in our lives during the time we have. And it’s all under the sovereign hand of our good God.
So if you can trust me with that basic tenet for a moment, I’d like to share how that works in our lives from a practical, and even biblical perspective. And why that should inform how we interact with those going through any kind of hardship.
To quote an over-used adage (that still carries some truth), your trials can either make you bitter, or make you better. Biblically, it means that we are open to the lessons God wants us to learn in our hard times. So, just what does it look like to let God teach us?
- We don’t sugar-coat the reality or the devastating nature of what we’re facing. For God to use our pain for our good, we have to experience the pain. Ignoring it limits the powerful effects of God’s sanctifying grace.
- We look to see what character God is building in us through this trial. Maybe we see it in the midst of the struggle, but it’s likely to be more obvious in our rearview mirror. Don’t miss this crucial element of trials!
- Has this trial made you more compassionate? Empathetic? Grateful for what you have? In awe of how God works? More cognizant of his hand on your life? More able to persevere? Take inventory!
- Find ways to use those character-building qualities to help others, and speak truth into their lives during their own struggles.
- Recognize the permanent nature of this change God has brought about in your life. Be grateful that he loves you enough to walk you through this, and use your challenge for good.
What about when we’re the ones living in the sunshine, but looking in on friends and family members who are in the midst of their battle? What lessons does this teach us?
- Acknowledge that, regardless of how difficult (or not) you might think their struggle is, to them it might be one of the most painful seasons of their lives. Don’t judge and don’t compare. Their pain is their pain.
- Because God is working something specific in their life through this trial, don’t try to move them through it at your pace, or remove them from it by minimizing its effects on their lives. Don’t get in God’s way.
- Recognize that they, too, will be changed in some way because of what they’ve experienced, regardless of where it lands on the “devastation scale.” Welcome and embrace these changes in their lives rather than mourning the fact that they aren’t the same person they used to be.
- Be there for them at the end of their struggle to encourage them to have eyes to see God’s handiwork on their lives.
- In whatever way you can, use your own character-built qualities to be the kind of friend they need most.
“Forever changed” by our hard times doesn’t need to be a detriment in our lives. God’s work through these seasons can and does give us an eternal perspective that we can only fully appreciate if we embrace his sanctifying work.
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:3-5
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