We Have It All Backwards {Held Secure}

We have it all backwards. I had it all wrong as a young wife and mom, and I still find myself reverting back to the same faulty thinking at times. Do you do the same? 

How often we find ourselves thinking that life, as we experience it here and now on this earth, should be free from suffering. That somehow, we, of all people on the earth, should not have to experience the hard trials that we find ourselves in at times.

Isn't that our perspective so often? When a difficulty or trial meets us face on, we recoil, and often even become angry. We question God, treating Him as if He has forsaken us, and we accuse Him of His lack of care for us.

But suffering is part of this world. A perfect life with no tears is the life that we have to look forward to in eternity, with our perfect, loving, faithful Creator and Father. We long for that day (can you imagine how wonderful it will be?) - and we are given small glimpses of that life through the gifts and blessings He showers on us in the here and now. But the perfect life with no suffering, no sorrow, no trials is what we have to look forward to. It is not ours today.

"And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering." (Romans 8:23a NLT)

And as we wait for that day, as we walk through this life with disappointments, diagnoses of illnesses, jobs laid off, our everyday heartaches both big and small, we have a promise. A promise that is beyond what we could ever hope for - the promise of ...  Immanuel - "God With Us". 

The promise that GOD, 

the great Creator, everlasting Father, faithful Friend -

 that this God is "with us". 

The God who chose to live and walk with us on this earth through His Son - and the God who chooses to live within us, and walk with us through life on this earth - closer than any other. 

When we are faced with a new trial - our first response may well be tears of grief and sorrow, for we are human - but may our response also be tears of joy, knowing that the great God of the universe has not pulled away from us. Instead, in our times of greatest need, He is closer than ever as He walks with us, holds us, and carries us through trials and pain, giving us deeper tastes of His unending Love for us - deeper than we have ever tasted of before. 

Remembering trials we have gone through in the past (a daughter's leukemia, years of broken relationship within our family, my husband's horrible accident which nearly took his life, and more) ... and thanking Him for His Love and Presence in the trials of today (as we are in the "waiting room" with some longings and prayers for family, and as we walk through the pain of our granddaughter's kidney failure and upcoming kidney transplant).

Click here to read more posts on this topic ...
Held Secure: His Love in Times of Trial


Linking up with:
Tuesdays Unwrapped