Understanding

Well, I guess I semi-jinxed myself with my post on Thursday. By Thursday evening the stress of life had reduced me to a bundle of nerves. I was feeling very overwhelmed, not by the loss of Trey inparticularly, but other difficulties temorarily got the best of me. I'll briefly list them just to give you a better idea.

The rabbits got out of their hutch. Pilot, Luke's boxer, killed one of them. The other one is hiding from the dog in a pile of junk behind our storage building. Haven't been able to catch him yet. Hopfully we will before Pilot does.
Luke's fish died. He wasn't looking great for a day or two. I was pretty sure that he was about to die, but every time I asked Josh about it he said that it was sleeping. Now it is laying on its side on the bottom of the tank, so I'm pretty sure that it is dead.
My cat, Dinah, is missing. I am still hoping that she will show up, but it has been 5 days now and I'm not as hopeful as I was a day or two ago. I have had her for almost nine years. I have been through ALOT(to put it very mildly) with her. She represents me making through some tough times, so it would be difficult for me to lose her.
My car is broken down. Wednesday night I drove over something that drug on the bottom of my car. Apparently it poked a hole in the oil filter and the oil drained out and I most likely burned my engine up. HOPEFULLY insurance will pay to have it fixed(after we pay the deductible), but it is going to be very frustrating for me to be completely immobile for probably about a month. Josh's truck was wrecked a couple of weeks before Treyson was born. He has been borrowing my dad's truck to go to work and back since then.

All of these trials are very temporal. But for the moment I felt very overwhelmed. Luckily, when I woke up Friday I had put things in the proper perspective and was feeling much better.

Today I sat down and started reading a devotional book that my sister gave me. It is called "Streams in the Desert", by L.B. Cowman. I have only just started it today, but I would recommend it to anyone that is going through a difficult time(and isn't that all of us at one time or another). The reading for today encouraged and spoke to both Josh and I. It talked about how Christ had to suffer and therefore, "doing God's will and thus expericencing suffering is the highest form of faith, and the most glorious Christian achievement".

Josh and I, even while I was still pregnant with Treyson, knew that we wanted God to use our situation to minister to others. Especially to others who either had lost or where facing the potential loss of a child. When you are suffering it is easy to forget that God wants to use it for good in your life. It is easy for sorrow and depression to cloud your vision of God's greater purpose. When your vision is clouded and your focus is off of the Lord it is easy to get caught in the "why?" Why us? Why our child? Why does this even have to happen at all?

Today's devotion helped put me perspective back on the right track. In it the writer said, "In order to have a sympathetic God, we must have a suffering Savior, for true sympathy comes from understanding another person's hurt by suffering the same affliction. Therefore we cannot help others who suffer without paying a price ourselves, because afflictions are the cost we pay for our ability to sympathize. Those who wish to help other must first suffer."

This was wonderful encouragement. Josh and I very deeply want to help others. Now we understand a little better why we have been chosen to suffer and how God plans to use it in our life. Understanding, though not always nessessary(no matter how much you feel like it is), helps bring peace.