Counting the gifts He gives

  Today's devotional reading left me with two quotes which touched my heart...quotes to ponder throughout the day.

 "Counting one thousand gifts means counting the hard things.........otherwise I have miscounted."

 "When God moves us out of our comfort zone......into the hard places that are way bigger than us, places that are difficult, hard, painful, places that even hurt....this is a gift.

You are being given a gift."

 These are hard words.....hard truths to swallow.

 I have miscounted. I have not given thanks for the hard things, for the hurtful things. I am still struggling with how to do that. What part of the pain of this year and last is a gift? I cannot say, I do not know, so I must look back on my life in order to find any type of answer to my question. Does good come from the hard things?

I remember a day, many years ago, when I sat in an empty house, with my brother and wept. I was very young, he was only a few years older. It was a dark day for us, and the beginning of a hard road. Nothing was right about it, nothing was good about it, and yet looking back on it I give thanks for that day. So many things came about because of it. So when looking back I can see good coming from hard times.......but it seems to require a lot of time to pass before I can see it.

 I had to walk through the valley of anger, of feeling betrayed, of lashing out at others before they could lash out at me. I had to walk and wallow in darkness for a long time.It was a long walk of many years until that one day, over 24 years ago, when God called my name and said it is time to come out of the valley. But I can now see the good He intended. He used even this terrible dark time in my life for good.

 I can also see that the hard times of my life have made me more compassionate, they have given me an ability to love others, they have pushed me towards God, pushed me to work towards knowing Him better, and the more I know of God the more I understand how very much I need Him, how I am not much of anything without Him. The hard times have strengthened me, strengthened my faith, strengthened my love, helped me to see that for the most part, we tend to focus much of our lives on things that do not really matter, and not enough on what matters most.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
Psalm 136:1-3

So today I move towards this truth I have been given today, and I with weak and shaking hands lift my arms to the heavens and say "thank You Lord" for the hard times. Help me to see You in them, help me to learn from them, help me to be a better person because of them, strengthen my faith through them, use them to help me to help others as they walk through their hard times. I give thanks because You are good and because Your love endures forever!

Lord I do believe, help Thou my unbelief!

I leave you with some quotes to ponder;

God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them. ~ C.S. Lewis

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering…. The love of God did not protect His own Son…. He will not necessarily protect us – not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.” ~ Elisabeth Elliot

Nothing but encouragement can come to us as we dwell upon the faithful dealing of our Heavenly Father in centuries gone by. Faith in God has not saved people from hardships and trials, but it has enabled them to bear tribulations courageously and to emerge victoriously. ~ Lee Robertson

Christians are like the several flowers in a garden that have each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other’s roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other. ~ John Bunyon

“Are you aware of who you really are in relationship to the very God who created the Universe, who scattered the stars and aligned the planets? Only to those who remember and realize that they are literally spirit children of a God who knows and loves them, can the fire of refinement be welcome. Otherwise, pain and adversity are just that, pain and adversity. Fire doesn’t purify; it only burns.”  ~ Toni Sorenson