Gratitude and Suffering

It is an interesting place to be in a time of gratitude and suffering at once.

I am on day five of a miserable flare up. My pain is at probably one of the worst places it has ever been and I feel super swollen though I don't look as swollen on the outside as I feel on the inside which can be common with what I have. I feel frustrated and I am really struggling with being in pain right now. I am trying hard to go on with my normal day to day because I don't want it to completely get me down (in more ways then one) but it is extremely difficult this time. To know that this is something that will be dealing with long term, I have found myself dwelling on that more than normal and that is not something that I want to be dwelling on because no good can come from it.

In this time, as I have realized that I was getting caught up in all of the negative aspects of my situation, I have made an effort to focus on what I have to be grateful for. I have a wonderful husband, healthy children, a home, my needs are taken care of, family and friends who I dearly love and love us, laughter...I have hope, grace, a deep relationship with Jesus...a lot of things to look forward to for the future...

We are not promised a life without suffering. Sometimes our suffering is of our own doing. We make poor decisions, we dwell on things that we have no control over, we get caught up in the "poor me" mantra, we allow ourselves to only focus on the negative... and we completely ignore the positive...the good.

Romans 5:3-4 teaches us, "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces

character, and character produces hope..."

I have found this to be true in my own life. Every time I have endured long times of suffering I have grown. Even in the times that I have lost myself to self pity for a few days, the moment I have pulled myself out of it, I have realized where my mind should have been. I begin to grow in the area I needed to be growing and I began to find the gratitude in the suffering.

I am currently reading a book on prayer and one of the areas that I will begin to focus on in my prayer life is specifically asking God to "break me". Even as I type that I have to take a deep breath. I have asked God to "stretch me"...to "grow me"...to "teach me"...and He has and it has not always been easy and I have suffered through many of those times and came out better, stronger and grateful, but to ask Him to "break me"...this will be something that I know will produce suffering. I have been broken before. Not by choice and not because I asked to be. Asking Him to break me is intentional and I know that it is something that He is teaching me that is necessary.

He has shown me what He has for me for my life. I know that He has had me in a period of waiting and just a slow time of doing small steps in that area. Before I start the process of praying for Him to "break me" I am going to be starting the process of asking Him to "search me". This too is something that I have done, but I want Him to truly search me in a way that shows me anything and everything I need to work through and that needs to be revealed to me that is keeping me from moving me into what He has for me. I believe that this may lead to a time of suffering, but I intend to be sure to look for the gratitude in all of this because I know it will produce character and will help me grow.

Finding gratitude in suffering is not easy. I know that because I have failed to find the gratitude many times and have suffered longer because I was unable to find any reason, any lesson, anything that made sense in it because all I saw and all I felt was my pain, my anger, my endless suffering....because I didn't have Him and when I did have Him, I didn't understand what it truly meant to have Him and understand that to suffer with Him was because He was refining me in the fire. He was creating me to be more into His image. He was growing me in character. He was creating me for a bigger purpose. He was teaching me and showing me that I was never alone because He was always with me. To trust in Him, to hold on to my faith and be steadfast, I know that no matter what happens here, I will be able to have gratitude in what is to come.