This is a subject on which I know I am unqualified to talk about. What little suffering I’ve experienced has been nothing compared to the suffering of many I’ve known. Last fall, Spencer and I attended the John Piper conference on suffering. I was humbled as I heard the many stories of human grief and pain that I could not even begin to comprehend. Many of you have heard me speak of my dear friend Cher who was in a horrible auto accident just three years ago, scalping her and crushing several of her vertebrae. My heart still grieves as I watch her continue to reel from the effects of that life altering wreck. We are tempted to ask God, “Why?” With five children at home, I don’t usually accompany my husband on pastoral visits. Back when we only had one baby, I went with him all of the time, but nowadays, I have to hear about most of the visits secondhand. However, my oldest daughter was available to stay with the baby today and I felt compelled to go with him to visit Miss Pearl. Miss Pearl was a stunningly beautiful pastor’s wife in her prime. Now she is blind and lives alone. Two years ago, she lost one of her four adult children to cancer. Last week, she lost a precious daughter to the same horrible disease–this time a brain tumor. On top of all of that, she cannot share her burden and grief with her husband, the love of her life, who is still alive but is now living in a nursing home because he is in the last full-blown stages of Alzheimer's. I went to Miss Pearl’s house today to be a comfort to her, but the truth is, she ended up comforting me. She is without a doubt, one of the most mature Christians I know. She is the steady picture of someone who derives all of her strength from the Lord and walks in his joy and peace in the midst of a personal storm. She is hurting, to be sure, and she is deeply grieving. But I was amazed as I listened to her today. I never once detected an ounce of bitterness toward the Lord. “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord,” she said. Oh Miss Pearl, I pray that I will have the same kind of strength and reliance on the Lord if I am ever called to walk the same kind of road on which you currently trod. Thank-you for being a supreme example Titus 2 to me and to all of the women in our church and community.

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; 13 but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. I Peter 4:12-13