Sometimes Life is Hard -- Revisited

I'm planning to write a mini series on the topic of forgiveness and am in the process of praying, researching, and organizing the million thoughts that are running through my head on this topic. So I've been in a quandary. I don't like to let too much time pass before I share a post, but I want to very carefully handle the Word while sharing from my heart with pure motives. Because of this I am not quire ready to share what I am learning about forgiveness. Generally, I share what I am currently learning and what applies to my own life. This month marks the eighth anniversary of Passionate Heart Ministry and we graduated 37 women from our support groups this week. These beautiful women had the courage to feel deep pain, come out of denial about their relationship with food, examine their painfully dysfunctional families, or explore the confusion they had in dealing with their emotions. These courageous women stayed the course so we planed a graduation ceremony. I shared some thoughts with them that were originally from a post I wrote last year. I made some changes for the talk and thought I might post the talk even though it is similar to last year's post. We have added a lot of readers this year and hopefully it will bless you if you are new. I will share some thoughts on forgiveness in the next couple of weeks but for those who were reading last year, I hope you will revisit with me and maybe even leave your thoughts below on how God sees you through the hard. 

"Sometimes life is hard. Life is hard because we experience losses—the loss of loved ones to death; the loss of relationships to conflict; loss of marriages to divorce; loss of things stolen, loss of homes stripped by floods, fires, or wars; loss of sentimental items, representing loved ones no longer here. 

Life is hard due to loneliness we experience. Maybe we married someone who is unwilling or unable to connect at a heart level. Maybe we took a risk and asked for changes in a friendship and the friend ignored us, leaving us feeling more invisible and unheard. Maybe we are dealing with painful issues that must remain private, leaving us feeling so alone. Life is hard when we lose jobs or struggle with poverty face the loss of a home or the fear of not being able to feed our family. Life is hard when we end relationships to preserve our integrity or because a relationship causes pain too deep to bear. Life is hard when we experience abuse. It doesn’t matter if the abuse is sexual, physical, emotional, or spiritual—all abuse robs us of innocence, causes us to feel unsafe in our homes, community, church or our own bodies. Abuse leaves us struggling with injustices and judgments—sometimes others and sometimes our own. Life is hard when we realize we can't fulfill dreams or we face limitations because our bodies or our emotions are wounded. Life is hard because we sin and hurt others. We say unkind words we can’t retract and they hang between us and the person we love like a heavy, dark curtain. We hurt others’ reputations through gossip and slander. We say things in haste that deeply wound the hearts of our children. We lose friendships because we are selfish, self-centered, or hurtful. We may regret it, we may repent, and may apologize many times, but sometimes forgiveness isn’t granted and restoration never takes place.

Ironically, the more we love, the more we will experience hard. But, the hard is not always bad. Pain can create a thirst for change. It can create a humility that leads to repentance. It can create a thirst for our heavenly home where there will be no more death, no injustice, no sin, no abuse, and no more tears. The question we need to contemplate in the here and now is, “How do I live in the hard and remain faithful to God?”

There are a couple of things we can do that will help us remain faithful in the hard. First, though simple, is very powerful. We can choose to look for God’s daily blessings and acknowledge them and give thanks to God for those even in the midst of the hard

Second, we can follow the Old Testament example of building monuments. When Israel experienced the hard followed by God’s miraculous intervention, they were instructed to build monuments so that they wouldn’t forget what He had done. When they crossed the Red Sea, they built stone monuments and when their children asked what the stones were about, they told them the history behind them and what God did for them. Each of our monuments might look different. One of my friend has monuments. She planted plants when her four children were born to mark the gifts God had given her. After one child, she planted a sprig of bamboo that grew into a grove. She recently lost the son that the bamboo represented in an accident and she has survived the great pain of grief by praising God and by remembering the gifts God gave her through her son. She can see the grove of bamboo from her window and will someday be able to share with her grandchildren about the son she lost, the lessons she learned through grief, and about his faith in Jesus.

When our granddaughter was born 12 weeks too early, our women’s director gave me a prayer quilt for her. It covered her incubator as she slept and grew. In my mind the quilt is a monument to the God who created this beautiful little girl and saw her through a rocky start. I also planted a yellow rose to celebrate the life of one of the most precious friends I have ever had. She was a woman of grace and humility and a very giving and loyal friend. Its growing rampant by my front door, and every time I see it I think of her and the friendship God gave us and how that friendship created a hunger to know the God she knew so well. 

But most of my monuments are found in my writing. Not only do I keep a running lists of things, I am thankful for, I have published curriculum for support groups that testify to the work God has done in my life. I also publish this blog, sharing the lessons God teaches me so I won't forget and so others can learn from what I have learned.

One monument I wrote about started being built when a counselor asked me to give her one word that described what I felt growing up. Without hesitation, I said, “Invisible.” Several months later I was going through a healing prayer and the prayer director told me she sensed God wanted me to renounce something she had never heard of. I asked her what it was and she said it was “the spirit of invisibility.” I had not told her I felt invisible and was overwhelmed by God’s love in telling her to have me renounce that spiritual stronghold. God then reminded me of the story of Hagar who was Sarai’s servant. After she had become pregnant by her mistress’s husband at her mistress’s request, she developed contempt for Sarai. Sarai became enraged and sent her away. Pregnant and alone in that desert, life was hard for Hagar. She sat down and wept. Genesis 16 tells us the angel of the Lord responded to her. 

“And He said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going/” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” The angle of the LORD also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.”…so she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “El Roi”—You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me.”

God saw Hagar and met her in the hard. Hagar called God “El Roi,” the God who Sees! The God of Hagar let me know that He also saw me even when others didn’t. El Roi has many implications for us. He sees children abandoned by parents—either physically or emotionally. He sees a child, belittled and abused at school. He sees a girl trying to scrub away the shame of the perverted sexual violations perpetrated against her. He sees a girl trafficked for sex—drugged and held against her will. He sees a family displaced by war, earthquakes, and floods. He sees those grieving the violent deaths of loved ones. He sees parents whose children are starving, sick, or dying. He sees moms struggling with lost babies and those who couldn’t conceive. He sees babies born so small they fit in the palm, struggling to breathe while parents beg God for the life of one out of the womb too soon. He sees those saying good bye to loved ones as they slip into eternity and those grieving because they didn’t get to say goodbye. El Roi! What hope there is in our God who sees.

God gave me another monument through a Bible study I attended. The pastor asked what was difficult about waiting on God. I wasn’t sure why it was hard for me until the pastor shared a verse that pricked my heart. The verse said that God has His ears turned towards those who wait on Him. I was such a compliant child, that when I spoke someone’s name and they didn’t respond, I gave up. I assumed that when God wanted me to wait, that he wasn’t going to respond either and would withdraw from Him. That night I realized God’s silence didn’t mean He didn’t want to hear me. It meant that His ears were turned toward me and it was an invitation to keep talking to Him:

• Talking until the buried pain in my heart was healed and replaced with joy
• Talking until the compassion that had been stifled was resurrected and my heart grew passionate again
• Talking until the lies I believed were exposed and replaced with His truth
• Talking until my unbelief grew into faith
• Talking until my hidden sin was exposed and I cried out for His mercy to be fulfilled in me
• Talking until the desire to know Him became bigger than my desire to experience His gifts
• Talking until He fully had my heart, God is my Jehovah Shama--the God who hears.

God hears the cries of those facing injustice. He hears the cries of those abandoned or betrayed by parents, spouses, or friends. He hears the cries of those disappointed and those with deep wounds left by those who should have loved them, but didn’t. He hears the cries of those beaten down and trod upon. He hears the cries of those who have been lead to believe they’re never good enough, never smart enough, or never pretty enough and too much at the same time. He hears the cries of those who have born burdens way too big for their shoulders. He hears the cries of those who long for peace and freedom from abuses, freedom from pain, freedom from guilt and shame, freedom from addictions, and freedom from hatred. He hears the cries of those who hate their sin and want to be forgiven.

He hears the cries and the questions that rise from the depths of grieving souls and understands that those questions reveal broken hearts. He hears every prayer spoken aloud and every prayer muttered deep within the heart—even the prayers so full of anguish they are heard as nothing more than a groan. Oh, what hope there is in Jehovah Shama who is the God whose ears are always turned toward us.

God is not only a God who sees and hears, He is a God who acts! In response to the cries of the people He created and the pain He saw them in, He came to earth to reveal His great love. He took on a body of flesh and lived among people just like us---people in bondage to sin and people paralyzed by deeply wounded hearts. He spent time with those who had overwhelming needs no person could fill. He chose to die a horrible cruel death—suspended between heaven and earth to bear our shame, our guilt, and our ugly sin. We must never lose sight of the fact that our sin wasn’t placed on a cross, It was placed on the LORD Jesus Himself! He was the One who faced the wrath of God in our place. He died so that God’s unending grace, precious peace, unimaginable goodness, and extravagant love could be poured out upon us. He bore unspeakable abuse so that He could exchange His perfect righteousness for our sin. He came so that we could truly know that God is a God who understands when life is hard.

In the moments when we are overwhelmed by the hard, we can look to the monuments we have built and believe in a God who sees and who hears and who will act in ways that show us His love and His faithfulness.

We must always remember that the painful cross preceded the glory of the empty grave. We must remember to embrace the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, who leads us to repentance and to a deeper connection with our Savior. Jesus took our sin away and He is the One and only one who can heal our hearts and give us hope. Remembering what He has done will help us remain faithful in the hard.

We are blessed that the hard causes us to long for the completion of our salvation that occurs when we are face to face with our Jesus--when our pain and suffering will end and the tug of sin on our hearts will dissipate. We want to live in such a way that we can be used by God to reach people who are lost in the hard! We want to show them that His resurrection speaks of hop, power, and joy. We can only do this by remaining faithful and trusting Him in the hard. Do you believe in your heart of hearts that God sees you? Do you believe that He hears you? Can you trust Him in the Hard? I hope so, because He faced the hard for you and He faced the hard for me."   

Meeting God in the Face of Rejection

"For I am sure that neither death nor life,

not angels nor rulers,

nor things present nor things to come,

not powers, nor height nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation,

will be able to separate us from

the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8:38-39

 



My church has been covering a series on fear and yesterday the topic was the fear of rejection. It covered the story of Jacob found in Genesis 32:22-32. I loved the sermon because I have never met a person who hasn't been hurt deeply by rejection at some point in their lives. Some of us have experienced rejection when a friend quit being a friend. Some can relate to rejection by being left off the invitation list of an important party. Some can relate because we had a boy friend or girl friend decide the relationship was no longer working even though love was expressed and commitments were made.  Some could relate to rejection because a bully rallied a class full of kids to ostracize one.   

 

As adults we relate when we experience rejection when bosses over look us or women excluded us from girls night out. We relate when those in our church overlook our giftedness or choose to victimize us through gossip or slander. Some have experienced rejection when marriages ended and it wasn't just the rejection of a spouse that hurt. It was the rejection of friends choosing sides. Sometimes there have been rejections due to changes in life stages. Maybe friends without kids no longer wanted to socialize after our babies came or friends turned away when we were overwhelmed with a special needs child. 

 

There are also those pesky little everyday rejections where spouses don't "feel like" loving or  communicating. There are rejections experienced when children rebel or reject our values.   

 

There are also some experiences in life that may be perceived or interpreted as rejections. They may be real rejections or may be we experienced them as rejections because of the way we interpreted them. Some of these types of rejections are when a parent, grandparent, or teacher seem to favor one child over another...something that could be true or something that could be a perception.  Maybe it was being the last child chosen for sports teams. Those choosing may have simply wanted to win and chose those who played the best, but it feels like a rejection to the child who isn't best. Maybe it felt like rejection when a friend chose to go shopping with another friend for the day. In our heads we know it is okay and not rejection, but in our neediness it feels like that. 

 

There is another type of rejection...where one feels rejected as a person. It may have been a parent silencing a talkative child or punishing a creative child for coloring outside the box, causing the child to believe the person they were created to be was not acceptable. It may have also been a parent withholding love as discipline or a parent not meeting the basic needs of time and affection that caused the child to believe they weren't good enough or were too much.     

 

As I was listening to the sermon yesterday three other stories came to mind of people who had suffered rejection and how God met their needs in the face of that rejection. The first woman that came to mind was Hagar. She was the handmaiden of Sarah. As such she didn't have a lot of power or control over her own life. God had promised Sarah and Abraham a baby in their old age and it didn't happen right away, prompting Sarah to "help" God fulfill His promise. By following the customs of the day, she had Abraham lay with Hagar who conceived a child in her place. When it happened the women understandably have all sorts of feelings and attitudes towards each other and Sarah sends Hagar away. God sends Hagar back. After Sarah births her own child, she sends Hagar away again. Alone in the desert with the child she had born at her mistress's request, she sits down and weeps. God meets her there, speaking hope into her rejected heart and assures her that He will make her son into a great nation. Hagar ascribes to God the name El Roi, which means the God who sees me! God saw Hagar in the pain she was experiencing from rejection and He met her there. 

 

The second woman who came to mind was the Samaritan woman who came to get water from a well. She came in the heat of the day, indicating she was avoiding social contact and Jesus surprised her by asking her for a cup of water. She was surprised because Jewish men didn't relate to Samaritans, especially those who were women. He engages her in a conversation as a way of revealing who He is to and in an effort to get her to own who she is. At some point Jesus asks her to bring her husband and she says that she doesn't have one. He tells her she was right in saying she had no husband and reveals that He knows she had been married five times and was now living with a man who was not her husband. We need to understand some things about the culture of her day. To be divorced she would have been taken to a public place where judgments happened and declared her unfit as a wife.  She wasn't just rejected one time, she experienced the shame of this rejection five times. In addition, living with someone who chose not to marry her left her scandalized. Jesus met her where she was. I am not sure how much choice a woman had in those days, but today when women go through serial marriages, they are often looking for someone to fulfill the void left by rejection they have experienced. God revealed to her the love, acceptance, and validation humans show will always pale and always fail in comparison to the love, acceptance, and validation of our Great God. I remember one lady telling me that if she knew in her first marriage what she knew about God now, she would not be divorced for the third time. 

 

Rejection hurts! It hurts enough when it is private and only know to a select few. But it has to hurt even more when it is so public and so shaming. Notice, Jesus sought her out and met her where she was at, just like God had done with Hagar. This is really significant, because sometimes when we are experiencing rejection by a human, the enemy does all he can to convince us that we are unlovable and rejected by God as well. It strikes at the very core of our heart where we wonder if we were too much, not enough, or both. But, rejections is mostly about the heart of the rejector and their inability to love well. When we fail to remember that God seeks out the rejected, we may be prone to seek out relationships independently of God to numb our wounded hearts. But, we, as hurting people, don't make  wise decisions. In fact, we may choose relationships that set us up for a whole lot of rejection and pain. 

 

The third story that came to mind was the story of Joseph. First, He was thrown into a pit by ten of his brothers.and then taken out of the pit and sold as a slave to some Egyptian men. We aren't told of a face to face reckoning meeting like Hagar and the woman at the well had, but as we read the story of Joseph, we see God had His hand on Joseph's life and Joseph remained faithful to God no matter what came his way. He was raised to a high place in the government and provided a plan that saved the nation from famine. He ultimately saved the lives his family and when they sought his forgiveness, he was able to grant it and tell them that even though they meant what they did for evil, God had meant it for good.     

 

So, how do we live in the face of rejection? First, we want to remember that God meets us there. We cannot listen to the lies of the enemy that would tell us different. Sometimes, we'll experience Him  directly and sometimes we'll sense Him through faith. Sometimes we'll experience Him through others sent to encourage us and at other times we experience Him through solitude and wrestling as we expose grieving hearts to His healing love. 

 

Second, we want to remember that rejection by another person isn't proof that we have been neglected or rejected by God. He is ever faithful, no matter what others do. He has promised that nothing can separate us from His love, so by faith we can look to Him trusting His goodness.  

 

Third, it is wise to take time to grieve and to ask God to teach us what we need to learn to grow through the pain of rejection. He may want to show us a fault we need to correct that drives others away. I believe Joseph resolved a pride issue, growing into a humble man who waited on God to fulfill His plans. God may even want to do a deeper healing of pain a current rejection surfaced, which I suspect was the case for the lady at the well. 

 

Finally, when we look at Jesus, we can't forget that He was well acquainted with rejection. John 1:10-11 says, "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own people and His own people did not receive Him." His own family didn't recognize Him. the nation rejected Him. A disciple betrayed Him while His friends denied Him. His heavenly Father even forsook Him as our sin was laid on Him. 

 

Surely we can trust a God who willing experienced such rejection for us. Surely, we can and look to Him to minister to our rejected hearts and remember that His love is big enough to fill every void and to see us through the emotional pain of rejection. He is the One who will never, ever desert us. With Him we don't have to ever worry about being too much or not enough. He loves us at our worst and draws us to the center of His heart, freeing us to be our best. Maybe the journey of rejection is a journey that leads us to the love that never fails.     

 

 

 

 

Meeting God in the Hard

Life is hard because of the losses we experience. These include people we dearly love and people we’ve spent years grieving over because some relationships are so broken. Life is hard because of long seasons of loneliness in which we reach out and beg for changes that could build intimacy with spouses or friends only to be met by anger that leaves us wounded or by passivity that leaves us feeling invisible and unheard. Life is hard when we lose relationships or friendships due to divorce or because conflicts couldn’t be resolved; no matter how hard we tried. Life is hard even when we chose to end relationships to preserve our integrity or to stop pain we could no longer bear. After all, aren’t we, as believers, supposed to make it all work? In reality, it is not always possible. Whether loss of relationship is by choice or not it sometimes makes life hard. 

Life is hard when we lose material things–things stolen, homes repossessed, or homes destroyed by natural disasters. Material losses include things we can easily replace and the sentimental items that can’t–baby pictures that burned, wedding albums floating in flood waters, scrapbooks of family vacations taken by a tornado, or grandmother’s china that shattered in an earthquake. And yes, things are things, but some things have special meanings and, yes, sometimes life is hard when we can’t replace those things.

Sometimes life is hard because we face losses due to abuses we’ve experienced. It doesn’t matter whether they were sexual, physical, and/or emotional in nature–victims experience a loss of innocence. They lose a sense of being safe in their home, their family, their community, their church, and even their own bodies. Losses are felt when we experience violence either first hand or vicariously. They are felt when we experience injustices and judgments in the face of divorce and long drawn out custody battles. Losses can be unfulfilled dreams or decreased abilities due to illness or injury, or even the aging process. 

Life is also hard because we are part of a culture that experiences violence such as Nine-Eleven, Columbine, Newtown, Colorado, Taft, churches all over the world, bombings, and now the mass shooting in Las Vegas. Many will grieve because of so many lives lost. Many will struggle as they work hard to physically recover from wounds. And many will struggle the impact of trauma from having been there and survived, having watched it on TV, and having been shocked to realize our sense of safety is being rocked to the core. When there are such big losses some will shut down and not experience their losses for a while as they struggle to come to terms with it. Yes, life is sometimes hard for a season as we face and grieve these losses.   

Ironically, the more we love, the more potential we have to experience hard. I’ve lost extended family and three friends who deeply impacted my life. I’ve lost my parents, my parent-in-laws, my spiritual Dad, and precious friends I met through church. My heart has also ached because I have chosen to walk with many through painful things. Yet, observing them courageously facing their hard and choosing to acknowledge it and move through it so it can no longer control them blesses me! Standing shoulder to shoulder with the hurting is standing on the most sacred ground there is. I’ve watched as friends, both near and far have buried loved ones–parents, spouses, children, and grandchildren. To be honest it has made me angry at death and sin and it has created in me a thirst for heaven where I know there will be no more death, no injustice, no sin, no abuse, no grief, and no tears–no hard-but for now sometimes life is hard.

Friends have just buried their eighteen-year-old son, grandson, brother, and friend. I’ve pondered a lot about how we deal with life in the face of the pain of the hard. The pat answer, of course, is in the promise of eternal life. Yet, I think we are missing something in the now if this is the only tool we use to cope. Israel was instructed to build monuments to remember who God is and what God had done for them. My dear friend Joyce, her husband, her son, and her daughter-in-law have shared monuments of Scriptures that have seen them through this painful time. One monument Joyce shared was a verse that a mutual friend had preached on years ago proclaiming God upholds us with His right hand. When he preached on the verse, it impacted her so much she wrote about it in her journal and she was able to go back to that verse and hang on to it in this season of hard. The last few months I’ve experienced loss and been surrounded by pain to a point I’ve been overwhelmed. A friend reminded me it comes with the territory of being in the business of loving others-my grief has become tinged by thankfulness even in the hard.

I've been thinking about specific monuments God has given to me, many of which came through seeking God in the process of healing from past emotional pain. One of those monuments occurred after a counselor friend asked me to choose a word to describe how I viewed myself. Without hesitation I told her, “Invisible!” Several months later I was praying with a prayer director who told me she sensed God wanted me to renounce something she had never come across before. I asked her what it was and she said, “God wants you to renounce the spirit of invisibility.” I had not told her about feeling invisible and became overwhelmed at God’s goodness in revealing this to her so I could be set free from a stronghold. Shortly after the prayer time, I came across Hagar’s story. After becoming pregnant by her mistress’ husband, Hagar developed an attitude and was sent away by the slighted, bitter Sarah. Alone in the desert where life was hard, she sat down and wept. She was all alone or so she thought. God met her there in the hard of her being used, her loneliness, her invisibility, and her rejection. In an act of worship, she ascribed to God, the name El Roi, which means “The God who Sees!” This means He is also the God who sees me…even in the hard!

This name for God has so many implications for us. He sees little ones abandoned by their parents physically and/or emotionally. He sees little ones whose spirits are crushed by abusive words spoken by caretakers or bullies. He sees little ones being pounded by those who are supposed to nurture them. He sees girls and boys trying to scrub away the shame of perverted people who violated them. He sees girls trafficked by their parents and girls taken off the street by pimps and shipped to who knows where-to be used to death. He sees those displaced by natural disasters--tidal waves, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, and landslides. He sees families struggling to understand why loved ones were killed violently by angry people they don’t even know. He sees those struggling with flashbacks and anxiety in the aftermath of violence and abuse. He sees the parents watching children struggling with horrific illnesses and painful syndromes no one can explain or heal. He sees families wracked by addictions, infertile women sitting through sermons for moms on Mother’s Day, and women fighting down a mountain of shame for babies they chose to abort and moms who did everything they could to carry their children but couldn’t. He sees tiny babies that fit in the palm of a hand fighting to live the life God created them to live and the parents pleading for Him to grow little ones out of the womb too soon. He sees parents weeping as they bury babies in tiny coffins and parents who’ve buried, not just one child, but two, three, or more. He sees people struggling with depression so deep and dark they grasp desperately for hope and the families left in the chaos created by an unpredictable world of mental illness. He sees parents and grandparents standing before flag-draped coffins as well as soldiers coming back physically and emotionally scarred for life. He sees families burying loved ones taken by accidents too soon, families facing the ugly truth that suicide has forever marked their family with deep pain. He sees families standing over hospital beds to say goodbye and those who are too late to say or hear a last, “I love you!” He sees little ones orphaned as well as those of us who are learning to live as adult orphans. EL Roi! The God who SEES! He Sees! He Sees! He Sees! Oh, how I love that name!

God isn’t just in the mountain tops, He is in the hard. We know that because God is the El Roi--the God who sees. He is also the God who creatively acts. Many of His names reveal to us His actions in response to what He sees! In response to the pain He saw His people in He came to love by taking on flesh and rubbing shoulders with people just like us--people who were in bondage to sin, in bondage to deep pain, and those with overwhelming needs no person on earth could fill. He died a cruel, unjust death-suspended between Heaven and Earth-so our shame, guilt, and ugly sin could be placed on Him. He died so His unending grace, peace, goodness, and love could be poured out upon us. He bore unspeakable abuse so we could know He, too, has experienced the hard and know He understands our pain in the hard!

In the moments, I'm overwhelmed by what I see others going through, by what they've survived, by what I know they will face in the future, or by what I am experiencing, I can look to the truth that God is the God who sees, who loves, and who acts in ways I am only beginning to understand. I remind myself that the cross preceded the empty grave and the hope that the resurrection brings. I remind myself that the cross preceded the gift of the Comforter who leads us to repentance, gives us supernatural strength to overcome sin, helps us endure the hard, and gives moments of connection to the wounded Savior that heals hearts and instills hope and peace. 

Maybe we live in this life with the hard so we can learn to thirst for the completion promised when we are face to face with Jesus where pain, suffering, and the constant tug of sin on our hearts is once and for all removed. Maybe we live in this life where the hard is not removed so those of us who know the Savior can be used by Him to be His eyes and His ears to a world of people who have lost their way in the hard. We live in the hard so the message that His Resurrections speaks of hope and power and joy is more readily received by the hurting. We can rest in the promise of His return and the promise of life eternal, which tells us the hard in this life is all the hard there is. I will remember the monuments He has given me personally and I will cling to the truth of who He is and know He sees me all the time--even in the hard!