Soldiers in a Foxhole

We have a tendency to make mountains out of mole hills.  There are minor inconveniences that can get magnified into full blown crisis.  We are at the grocery store and there is a lot of people and only a couple of lines open.  It's a disaster.  How long will we need to wait?  There is a traffic back up and that package didn't arrive and our computer crashed and and and and and.  Every day there are struggles but that's not what we are talking about.  No there are struggles and then there is true suffering.

In 1864 President Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Mrs/ Lydia Bixby.  Mrs. Bixby had lost five sons in civil war.  The thought of losing a child is horrific, let alone five.I am sure in penning this letter President Lincoln both felt the need to express compassion for this great loss and completely inadequate for the task.  But still he tried.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.  I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

We all go through tough times, but some of us more than others.  I can't say that I've gone through as much as many.  I look at some people and think, "How do they make it?" It seems like they would just give up.  People go through devastating loss and horrible sorrows and make it through.  I think we are more resilient than we give ourselves credit for being.

Suffering.  Real suffering, Tragic suffering teaches us patience and endurance to survive it.  It brings out Jesus-like qualities as we grow from the experience.


Watch this clip from Pastor Sparks.

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When we suffer we get through it.  Through the experience we learn to lean on God. So is that its purpose?

I can't picture a God that tortures us so that we will need him more.  I don't think it works that way.  I think suffering happens.  Bad things happen.  We make bad choices or some one else does.  Sometimes there are natural disasters or random attacks.  There is plenty of suffering in the world without God needing to make more up.  But when the suffering does happen, there is God to provide shelter and see us through.  

It is like soldiers in a foxhole.  The enemy is shelling them.  They don't see how they will ever make it to morning. But then the dawn comes.  The shelling stops and a new day breaks.  And those soldiers will forever have a special bond that is only forged by going through trials together.  In the battles of life, God is in our foxhole.

We make it through and we are closer to God as a result.