A few days ago, we went to church with Forrest and
Carol and got to hear a young Guatemalan woman share the most amazing testimony! I wanted to share it with all of you because
I think it’s something we all need to hear.
I’ll do my best to remember…
(This is her speaking)
Most of us are no strangers to suffering, to anguish,
or to affliction. When I think of someone
who experienced suffering in the bible, I think of Jeremiah when he felt that
God had betrayed him. He wrote:
“I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of
His wrath.
He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
Surely He has turned His hand against me
Time and time again throughout the day.
He has aged my flesh and my skin,
And broken my bones.
He has besieged me
And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
He has set me in dark places
Like the dead of long ago.
He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.
Even when I cry and shout,
He shuts out my prayer.
He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
He has been to me a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in ambush.
He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
He has bent His bow
And set me up as a target for the arrow.
He has caused the arrows of His quiver
To pierce my loins.
I have become the ridicule of all my people
Their taunting song all the day.
He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drink wormwood.
He has also broken my teeth with gravel,
And covered me with ashes.
You have moved my soul far from peace;
I have forgotten prosperity.
And I said, “My strength and my hope have perished
from the Lord.”
Remember my affliction and roaming,
The wormwood and the gall.
My soul still remembers
And sinks within me.”
Lamentations
3:1-20
If you don’t know this passage well, God had
commanded Jeremiah to preach His word, promising him that he would do great
things. But the people He sent Jeremiah
to preach to rejected him, beat him, and then threw him in prison. Jeremiah felt betrayed. In this passage he even says that God had
broken his bones. We know by reading his
words that he was completed devastated and anguished. He believed that God had deceived him.
When I say most of us are not strangers to
suffering, anguish, or affliction…it’s because I actually was. I had never experienced suffering. Growing up, my life was basically
perfect. I knew God from a very early
age and I felt His love for me and my family grow stronger every single
day. I knew that God was love, and that
was all I thought I needed to know. Or
so I thought…
I only knew one facet of God: love. But there are many different facets to
God. I did not recognize God when He
showed another side of Himself to me. I
was not prepared for the suffering I was about to endure. I thought that God had left me. I had always been taught that God is love, so
I didn’t know Him as anything else. I
didn’t understand that He was trying to teach me something by appearing to me
differently. We never know how God will
show Himself. He was trying to get my
attention. I thought He was gone…
“By night on my bed I sought the one I love;
I sought him but I did not find him.”
Song
of Solomon 3:1
“I opened for my beloved,
But my beloved had turned away and was gone.”
Song
of Solomon 6:1
My father suddenly died. My father, for those of you who don’t know
me, was everything to me. He was my
father, my pastor, my counselor, my comforter, and my friend. And when he died, I cried out to God, “Where
have you gone! Why have you left me!”
And then my sister died. I was completely devastated. I felt like I couldn’t breath. I felt abandoned and betrayed by the God I
loved. In Jeremiah’s devastation, he was
ready to walk away from God. I felt the
same way. But God came in grace and mercy
to show me what He was doing.
The bible says there is a great prize to those who
endure suffering.
“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand
of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for
He cares for you.”
1
Peter 5:6-7
“May the God of all grace, who called us to His
eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered awhile, perfect,
establish, strengthen, and settle you.”
1
Peter 5:10
My sister had been working as a missionary in the
Dominican Republic when the doctors there discovered the tumor in her
stomach. They told her she was going to
die. She was so sick that she came back
to Guatemala without her belongings. She
had arranged to have them sent back, which takes months. Her belongings eventually made it back only
after she had died. Among her things, we
found her diary…
Her last entry was written the day she returned
home. She had written a letter to
God. The letter said:
“Today I dedicate my life to you. Thank you for being with me in both joy and
anguish. You have taught me to trust you
like a child. I feel security when I am
with you. I know that this is only the
beginning of your eternal plan for me. I
love you. I will see you soon.”
Then she had copied a song from the bible:
“Nevertheless I am continually with You;
You hold me by my right hand.
You will guide me with Your counsel,
And afterward receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides
You.
My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart
And my portion forever.”
Psalm
73:23-26
During her time of affliction, my sister turned to
God. She never complained. Not once did she ask, “Why me?” God always has a cup for us. Sometimes it is sweet and sometimes it is
bitter. But He always has a cup for
us. And we have to drink it. And even if the cup is bitter, we have to
drink it with joy because God is trying to teach us something. My sister drank a very bitter cup with joy
because she had come to know the Lord in such an intimate way. In times of affliction, we have to turn to
God.
Jeremiah felt betrayed by God. But then he remembered God’s faithfulness:
“My soul still remembers
And sinks within me.
This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘Therefore I hope in Him!’
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.”
Lamentations
3:20-26
God never leaves us, especially in times of
affliction. We will all endure
suffering, but great will be the prize for enduring it. My sister’s prize was waiting for her in
heaven.
Jeremiah writes,
“But the Lord is with me as a mighty, awesome One.”
Jeremiah
20:11
God is always with us…
