In All These Things

‎"None of us can know which shock or illness (headache or operation, disappointment or disillusionment with a friend, criticism or other human attack, loss of job or loss of house and land, news of a loved one's death) will turn out to be the most important opportunity we are ever going to have to honestly love God and truly trust Him in a way which will bring Him joy and defeat Satan.We cannot know which is the most important moment in our lives."

(Edith Schaeffer, Affliction: A Compassionate Look at the Reality of Pain and Suffering)

There was something so comforting in the thought (which never occurred to me before) that suffering pain and affliction in itself, seeing no end to the trial and yet hoping in the Lord -- not in the end of the trial, but in the Lord -- is in itself a victory.

In all these things we are more than conquerors. In what things? Miracles and deliverances? Not in that passage. The things we are more than conquerors in are not victorious sounding things. Tribulation. Distress. Persecution. Famine. Nakedness. Peril. Sword. Being killed all day long. None of them shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.