Joy In Suffering

"God...setteth in pain the jewel of His joy."

F.W.H.Meyers

"A friend who is gravely ill... is greatly loved by many and has had a unique ministry because of her gifts of friendship and hospitality.  Must she suffer?
The answer is yes.  For the Lord who loves her suffered and wants her to fellowship with Himself.  The joy of thus knowing Him comes not in spite of but because of suffering, just as resurrection comes out of death.  I have a Savior because I am a sinner; a beauty is given the child of God in exchange for ashes.
We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes.  But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem.  We receive His poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others.
How can one's illness help another?  By being offered to Him who can transform it into blessing.

A Lamp for My Feet

O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to Thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain

That morn shall tearless be.

George Matheson

-taken from Gateway to Joy, by Elisabeth Elliot
~Brittany

By sundry miracles, by divers mercies, by strange deliverances,

Jehovah had proved Himself to be worthy of Israel's trust.

Yet they broke down the hedges

with which God had enclosed them

as a sacred garden;

they forsook their own true and living God,

and followed after false gods.

O true believer,

called by grace and washed

in the precious blood of Jesus,

thou hast tasted of better drink

than the muddy river of this world's pleasure

can give thee;

thou hast had fellowship with Christ;

thou hast obtained the joy of seeing Jesus,

and leaning thine head upon His bosom.

Do the trifles, the songs, the honors, the merriment

of this earth content thee after that?

Good Rutherford once said,

"I have tasted of Christ's own manna,

and it hath put my mouth out of taste

for the brown bread of this world's joys."

Methinks it should be so with thee.

The waters of Sihor may be sweet to the Egyptians,

but they will prove only bitterness to thee.

- Charles Spurgeon -

~Brittany