Ok, so some of you may be thinking "this girl is crazy" after reading the title of this post. Once you take a minute to read what I have to say, I promise it won't sound so far fetched anymore. Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, authors of the book "What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do" tackled this topic in their book. They say this:
"Whether the problem relates to careers, relationships, health, emotions, or loss, we all tend to focus our energies on putting out the fire and making sure it doesn't flare up again soon. It may be a recurring chest pain you just hope will go away. It may be disconnect in your marriage you are learning to cope with. It may be an eating problem for which you are trying various remedies and plans. It's a problem, it's painful, and we want it gone" (page 50).
I don't know about you, but this is so relevant to my life and the way I deal with things. If there's an issue, I just want it to go away. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to endure it. I'm sure a lot of you can relate to that.
But here is what Cloud and Townsend have to say about that:
"God sees our difficulties very differently than we do...God loves you completely and wants the best for you. But he is less concerned about your immediate comfort than about your long-term health and growth" (page 51).
Consider what the Bible has to say about struggle in James 1:2-3:
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."
Basically, what I'm trying to show you is that God is bringing you through struggle for some higher reason. I don't know what that reason may be, and neither do you. The most important thing is that you are not going through hardship for nothing. There is something good that will come of it. Just to give you a real life example-- I have Cystic Fibrosis. This past winter I was hospitalized for the first time since I was diagnosed when I was 1 1/2 years old. I had pneumonia and a kidney infection. I was extremely ill, and supposed to return to college in just one week. The doctors wanted to keep me in the hospital for a MINIMUM of ten days (meaning I had know idea if I would even be able to go back to school). As if that wasn't bad enough, I also had horrible nurses. I mean, I'm talking down-right awful. I went 24 hours without being fed. I had some of them tell me I was just some "teenager looking for drugs." I would lay there in pain for hours before they would come help me. They were rude, inconsiderate, and made me feel a hundred times worse than I already did. So there I was, 18 years old, in the hospital, wondering if I would have to drop out of school (which I did), and dealing with these awful nurses. I really struggled with why God was putting me through all that. Now that its over and I look back on it, I see exactly why He put me through it. Not only was He trying to show me that I need to take better care of my health so things like that don't happen, but He was also trying to make me realize there is a demand for caring nurses who understand what it's like to be a patient. So, now that I'm back in school, I've changed my major to nursing, and I couldn't be more grateful for the struggles God brought me through last winter.
"Don't ask God to get rid of your problems, and don't merely tolerate them. Welcome them as gifts and you will find God's way through them. View your problems as the next steps of growth for you" (Cloud and Townsend page 57)
