Though I often feel the victim, I saw today the joy that can only be experienced in the deliverance of God.  Once might hope that God could grant some supernatural joy at all times.  But even that would have a different and distinct quality than the joy of deliverance that I found in my heart and soul today.  I found the beauty and majesty of God within this pain.  And I sure didn’t see it coming.

To joy in suffering seems at first a paradoxical bit of nonsense.  How does one rejoice in the darkness of pain and suffering?  I would be a fool to claim even a small crumb of consistency in practicing this truth, but as I have suffered in emotional physical ways in the past year, my eyes are opening more and more to His holy intentions for the seemingly endless and painful trials we face.

Many of you know the recent health hardships I personally have been dealing with.  Physical pain that has passed it’s torch to emotional pain.  It’s been difficult.  And yet somehow today I see the majestic beauty within it.  The distinct, unique, overwhelming beauty of God that can only be seen and only exists within the framework of pain.  It is not nonsense and it is not meaningless.  And it is certainly not cliché.  I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason.  That’s too arbitrary, too comfort driven.  I believe our pains and our sufferings, our trials and joys, exist to glorify God to the fullest.  God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, in the midst of loss.  In the midst of suffering.  He can be uniquely praised, uniquely worshiped, sincerely worshipped, in the deepest of valleys and darkest of nights.

I am starting to see the grace within suffering.  The blessing that it can be.  The reminder that God has not let me alone, he has not given me over to death.   Yet he lets us suffer, let’s us fall into trials to the praise of His glory and for the building of qualities that are incapable to develop outside of pain and trial.  And what a beautiful, lovely, wonderful joy I have found in this place where once only tears fell.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”
James 1:2-3