Articles and Poetry by Our Members
| Learning Through Suffering |
| Author: Amy Burback (age 19) Entered on: 10/1/2007 |
| Previous Article | Full List | Next Article |
| Since being diagnosed with Graves’ disease in January 2002, God has been teaching me some difficult lessons, which are precious to me as I grow in my walk with Him. Through this suffering, He has been regularly fulfilling His promise of perfecting His strength in my weakness. Here are a few thoughts: 1.The most agonizing experiences produce the sweetest times with Jesus. Once, several years ago, while feeling particularly exhausted from battling my illness, I asked the Lord if He was there and really cared for me. Immediately I sensed His arms enfolding me, and such joy surged through my being that tears of thankfulness filled my eyes. What an awesome God He is! 2.God often uses suffering to save and refine His elect. Throughout my disease, the Lord has been showing me how He gently but constantly was using my illness to make me aware of my sin and weakness in order to lead me to Him. One of the symptoms I battle is a violent rage, and my emotions are on a constant treadmill. My mom has told me that I struggle twice as hard against sin as most people do: I am waging war against BOTH my sin and my disease-driven temper! I have wanted to give up, and have had to repent of my attitude repeatedly, but since the Lord saved me, to my delight He has been faithfully giving me grace to employ self-control in this extremely weak area of my life. Truly, salvation is miraculous! God also utilizes affliction to skim off the dross and refine the silver in a believer’s life, and although this process is very unpleasant, it has created in me a passion to become wholly like Christ. Recently I have begun to pray for God to do whatever it takes to make me trust Him, and my faith is being grown, since God keeps answering it! 3.The hope of eternity with my Savior has become so real to me, and often I feel that there is but a delicate barrier separating me from God. At my age (nineteen), most people wrongly assume that they have their entire lives before them to enjoy. But as my disease continues to ravage my body, God has been stripping away my confidence in this life. Even with medication I never feel normal, and often I ponder death and eternity, longing desperately to be called into His glorious presence! 4.Affliction produces perspective and thankfulness. I have struggled grasping how blessed I am in just having Graves’ disease, but gradually God has shown me that He could have given me something like cancer or AIDS. Instead, He has only allowed what I CAN bear. For this reason alone, I am humbled by His gracious, merciful care. Sometimes, when I have been in such anguish, I truly have longed to die and be with God, despite being a young person with dreams and plans. But the Lord, through answering that prayer with a “no”, has revealed to me that He has a special plan for my life that is not yet fulfilled. Already, while telling others about the Lord’s work in me, I am beginning to see a few threads of this magnificent tapestry He is unfolding. 5.Compassion for hurting people is another thing the Lord creates in afflicted humans’ hearts. Relentlessly, He has been purging me of my indifference towards other suffering people. Now that I have been blessed with an auto-immune disease that I will bear, apart from God healing me, I have begun to desire to help other hurting people. Aiding others is even beneficial for me, since focusing on others distracts me from my pain. 6.And finally, affliction makes the blessings of this life and the truths in God’s Word so piercingly sweet. I am gaining sensitivity to the wondrous things that God is doing for me, from the mystery of Christ’s crucifixion defeating sin and death, down to the smallest details of life. Each breath I take is a gift from God, and my physical trial causes me to cling more tightly than I would have to Scripture’s precious promises. I am still nowhere close to being content with godliness, but I believe with all my heart that “trials…produce patience” James 1:2-3, and “He who has begun a good work in [me] will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6b “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” Revelation 22:20b |
