Even This

Ok, I must admit that I took this title from a devotional I read this morning from http://proverbs31devotions.blogspot.com/2010/06/even-this.html. But it spoke to me in such a way that I wanted to share it here.

Over the last week, my heart has been burdened by the struggles so many of my dear friends are experiencing right now. I feel like Satan is hard at work...but I know that God is working even harder behind the scenes. It's just difficult to sit back and watch people that you love going through such things. But He has put me in a unique position to encourage them. I know what it's like to experience something so awful that you wonder how God can turn it into good (as He promises in Romans 8:28).

In this particular devotional, Marybeth Whalen talks about her husband losing his job and having six children to feed. She talks about God's provision in the midst of this difficulty. The following paragraph in particular spoke to my heart:

"Is it odd to say that this job loss has been a blessing? A pathway to a new place we could never have reached if things had stayed the way they were? God uses everything in our lives to draw us closer to him. Even the bad stuff. Even the stuff we never would choose. Even the trials that shake us, that leave us different then before."

God says in Isaiah 42:16 - "I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them."

Praise God! I have learned first hand what it is like to have God guide me through the valley only to bring me to a place I never thought imaginable. Is it possible to say that my struggles were a blessing? Yes, because I would not be where I am today and my relationship with God would not be what it is had He not used those trials. So I thank God for the good and the bad...and everything in between. He knows what He is doing!