5 results for tag: Purpose in the Pain

Purpose in the Pain: Drawn to the Lord

It’s been ten years since I held my baby boy in my arms on that hot July day. Some days it feels like a lifetime ago, and others it seems like just yesterday. When I think about that season of my life, there are certain details that stand out to me. I remember how hot it was every single day. Our area experienced a pretty severe drought in the summer of 2011, and the heat was more than anything this Texas girl had ever before experienced. I cried when we finally had a good afternoon rain shower!  I remember the fierce love that I felt from a community that we had just moved to a few months before, and the intense grief that came with ...

Purpose in the Pain: Greater Fruitfulness

Every year, there is a season as a gardener where it’s time to prune my roses. When pruning roses, the technique is to pluck all the leaves off the rose bush and cut the long stems (called canes) in half, generally speaking.  I look at my once voluptuous Julia Child roses, grab my sheers, and cut them down to only the necessities every February here in Texas. When I’m done they look lifeless and nonexistent. The first time I did this, I thought they would never come back—but I was wrong. Not only do they come back from this every year, but they also thrive in the next growing season.  It’s hard to imagine how, or why, ...

Purpose in the Pain: Strong Character

”The will of God is love. And love suffers.”  - Elizabeth Elliot  Love suffers. You, as a Hope Mommy, know this better than most anyone else. You were called to love, and you were called to suffer.  You are not alone. Jesus was also called to love and suffer. Because He loved us, He suffered on the cross and overcame the world. Jesus did not overcome the world with violence or with money or with political power. Jesus overcame with world with suffering. John 16:33 As daughters of God and co-heirs with Christ, we are to follow Him. We are to bear our own crosses; we are to suffer with Jesus.  “The Spirit ...

Purpose in the Pain: Genuine Faith

I remember a conversation I had with a woman in my church who mentored me in the early days of my young marriage. She had several young children at the time, and one of her sons had been diagnosed with cancer. As she described the sadness and difficulty of their situation, she commented that while it was painful, she and her husband were grateful for the opportunity for their faith to be proven genuine. As they pressed on through the difficulty, they knew that their faith and trust in God was pleasing to Him. My friend was living and breathing 1 Peter 1:6-7, which says, “​​In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, ...

Comforting Others

When I think of God’s comfort in the tender days following Anna’s death, I have memories of Him holding me close, carrying me through the dark wilderness of pain, and covering my eyes from a scary wilderness of towering trees marked with anger, fear, envy, and death itself. This is how I metaphorically imagined His loving shield of comfort in poetic terms. Although I could not see it, I knew from Scripture that He was going to safely carry me through all this heartache into the brightly lit opening of the forest on the other side.  I also remember the new way the Psalms comforted me after experiencing loss. I read over and over again ...