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Listen while you read: "Blessed Assurance"1 (Lyrics) |
She suffers patiently. I'm not sure that I could under her circumstances.
Though a relatively young woman, my wife suffers from numerous health issues. Fibromyalgia makes each day painful. Several hernia surgeries prevent her from doing heavy lifting. Asthma makes exercising outside nearly impossible. The "ritis" brothers, degenerative and osteo, make moving on any given day a new experience in pain. In spite of medication, the pain remains intense, which, in turn, can affect her emotional moods. Yet, I'm continually amazed at how patiently she suffers. She refuses to allow the pain to master her, and she even does things that she knows will intensify her pain, things that she perceives as being associated with being a wife, mother, and grandmother.
Suffering accompanies life. How we respond to it speaks volumes about our character and our trust in God.
James 5:10 – For examples of patience in suffering, dear brothers and sisters, look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. (NLT)
The sources of suffering vary. For the prophets of old, as well as current propagators of the gospel, it was sinful people who demonstrated hatred for the gospel by harming or killing its carriers. A sin-tainted world manufactures suffering. Things don't last — neither do our bodies. Decay is inherent in all things and people. My poor choices can lead to suffering, leaving me to languish in emotional or financial pain. And, of course, God can use suffering as a disciplinary measure to get my attention. Sometimes, we may not now know the reason.
Suffering patiently comes by stopping the sinful or poor choices I'm making as well as accepting the consequences. God normally doesn't remove these. If God is disciplining, I must seek out the lesson that He's attempting to teach me. Prayer, trusting God, and associating with other believers makes the suffering easier to endure and learn from.
May God teach us how to suffer patiently as we look forward to the day when all pain and sorrow will be erased.
Prayer: Merciful God, we anticipate with excitement our eternal home where pain will be absent forevermore. Until then, give us the strength and patience to endure this world's suffering. Amen.
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Thank you.
Martin, Your reading drew my attention to another kind of suffering: empathetic identification with those who suffer. I see that gift in you – as you share in your wife’s sufferings. May God hold you both in his strong arms of love.
Oh, Martin I identify with your wife’s maladies as many of them mirror my own. I am buoyed up by 2 Corinthians 4:16 so we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. (ESV)
Martin: I appreciate your sharing the things your dear wife is facing every day, I too must put up with many of those same things. Yet we must carry on & continue praising God, as hard as it is to suffer patiently when one is in pain day after day. Someday, praise the Lord, all sin and suffering will be no more.
Hello Martin Wiles,
I read your devotional this morning, thanks for pouring out your heart to God and to us earthly readers of this devotional. God does indeed provide strength for us to weather all kinds of challenges. May God be praised for His Love, Mercy, Kindness and Grace.
May God bring healing to your wife as He determines and may you both rest in His care.
Thanks again for taking the time to write devotionals and may God bless you and make you a blessing.
(Ontario Canada)
Hello Martin.
I enjoy reading you notes. I also give thanks to our living Father, and His dear Son Jesus for mercy. And, as you mentioned, the times of suffering patiently! What a great comfort it is to know, that our dear Saviour will soon call us away from here. Your wife and yourself will no longer be in the body of flesh and blood. I’m just refreshing you, with the promises from our Lord that you already know. What wonders we will know, when in the presence of our Father God, his Son Jesus, and all the Saints that have gone before us. No more pain, sorrow, tear, death! I’ll know you even though we have never met face to face. O the joy of just the thought.
(USA)
Martin – it’s comforting to hear that God has a purpose in suffering as He uses it to develop patience and draw believers closer to Him. Your wife’s experience is a good example to all of us. Thank you for sharing.
Blessings.
A powerful testimony Martin,
Thank you for sharing. Your wife will be in our prayers.
May God richly bless you and give you His peace.
Dear brother in Christ, Martin,
My own wife is cut from the same cloth as yours, in that she daily endures arthritic pain requiring from time to time , morphine . I am responsible for the accident years ago that
increased the arthritis, yet she has never once blamed me. Even with her suffering she spends all her time running after others, such ad volunteering, visiting and encouraging me in my own walk. She truly is a gift from God.
Father I thank you for giving Martin and I Godly loving wives, and pray a healing blessing on Martin’s wife and my own. I thank you for showing us your love in action through our Marriage Covenants. You truly are a loving God who holds all his children in the protecting Palm of His Hand. Amen and Amen.
Blessings.