Walking Through Fiery Trials

For about an hour earlier I had no major pain. It felt like I could finally breathe again. Now, that extra pain medication is no longer working. It feels like all the pain has come rushing back into my body.

I’ve found myself back in a place that I had forgotten. I forgot how it really felt to stay in ongoing pain. Maybe God knew I needed the reminder. You can quickly forget the struggles of others once you’re doing much better. Once intense pain is no longer dominating your mind and life.

Chronic pain affects you in so many different ways. Physically you just hurt and often miserable. Emotionally you can easily feel distressed and depressed. Mentally you can hardly think straight sometimes. Relationally it can make you feel isolated from others as it’s hard to do things you once did with ease. Spiritually it can actually be a great plus because you know you’re desperate for God’s helping hand.

I don’t know how I lived in this level of pain everyday for almost five years. Somehow, God took me through it all to much better days. Now, I must believe in what God is able to do in this season. Six days have felt more like six months.

I’m having to pick back up the shield of faith to defeat the enemy. I’m having to seek God’s face desperately through prayer to counter all the flaming arrows coming my way. This not just a physical battle, but a spiritual war. All that matters is that God’s will be done. All that matters is that God is glorified somehow through my suffering.

“12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you.
13 Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world. 19 So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you. 1 Peter 4:12-13,19