Trials and Other Tidbits

I am thinking about trials and something I read today.
I am taking this from Streams of the Desert, for September
7th.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.(Ps.46:11)

The question often comes, " Why didn't He help me sooner?"
It is not His order. He must first adjust you to the trouble and
cause you to learn your lesson from it. His promise is, "I will be
with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him." He
must be with you in the trouble first all day and all night.
Then He will take you out of it. This will not come till you have
stopped being restless and fretful about it and become calm
and quiet. Then He will say It is enough.


God uses trouble to teach His children precious lessons. They
are intended to educate us. When their good work is done,
a glorious recompense will come to us through them.
There is sweet joy and a real value in them he does not regard
them as difficulties but as opportunities.

There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is to simply try
and get out of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize
the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we
have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a
larger measure of divine grace. Thus even the adversary becomes
an auxiliary, and the things
that seem to be against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way.
Surely, this is to be more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
(A.B. Simpson)

When I first read this, I was pregnant with our sixth baby. I don't know if
I really understood much of what it said. Now, sixteen years later, and
many, many more trials under my belt, I still see the wisdom, and I am still
like the person who endures a trial and wishing it was over, rather than being
the positive person who sees as it a way to grab more grace.

Since 2003 I have lost both parents, grandparents, all of my aunts and uncles.
My husband left his job of 22 years and started in a brand new field. My two
oldest children got married and now I have 5 grandchildren. I have stood
by and watched my children go through incredible times of testing and
have watched and tried to keep my mouth shut and my hands out of God's pie.



I have went down paths and roads I would have rather not gone and I
am so numb from the grief that I no longer feel things like I once did.
I think sometimes that is what scares me about trials. The feeling of
the breaking that seems to go on and on.

Then God is so sweet, to give me a gift. He will provide a sunset, or He will
answer a prayer that only He knew, He will give me the desire of my heart,
I had not voiced. He will come and lift the burden that I thought was
so huge and He will provide again and again gifts I never dreamed.

I used to pray that when people saw me, that it would not be me they
saw, but the reflection of the face of Jesus. It seemed so easy when I was
30 but now in my 50s as lyrics from a song said, " My stubbornness seems
to grow with age."


I think that is what scares me at this age, will I turn into a ungrateful,
sheep, who complains about the pasture that the Shepherd has brought me
in and will I get to the point where I refuse to lie down by the still waters,
wanting the things of this world rather than a relationship with the Lover
of my soul.
What I am thankful for today is that, none of this depends on me, because
When I said yes, to Jesus, someday, "I know that I will stand perfect and complete
in all the will of God." (loosely paraphrased by me, Colossians 4:12)
Isn't that a nice thing to be thankful for on this lovely Thursday!

Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, for His wonderful works to the children of men!

(Psalm. 107:6)