To be...content in our sufferings and have joyful anticipation of what's to come.

January 17
The text came early, my girlfriend had fallen in her kitchen and broken her ankle.  Whatever we were facing at that moment paled in comparison. I said, "At least I'm not in a cast!"  Then the virus hit and day three of the fever I said, "I think I'd rather be in a cast than going through this."  Next a call came seeking prayer for a childhood friend. Her son-in-law had died unexpectedly and her daughter had just found out she was pregnant with their second child. Suffering with flu was mild compared to walking alongside a daughter with such great heartache.  A Caring Bridge alert popped up. That's always a heart tug.  A neighbor had lost his battle with leukemia and this sweet family now faces life without their beloved husband, father, grandfather. Another friend was boarding a plane with her husband trying to reach his brother before he died. They didn't make it. And yet another friend has fallen and will be in a cast for eight weeks.

This is life, yet we are never ready to accept the suffering.  It was the perfect week for me to be studying Romans 8 with my Bible Study Fellowship sisters.  Our notes stated "For believers, suffering belongs only to this present age...God will reveal glory within us-'the inner me' that will receive a resurrection body and live forever will participate in glory!"

"What we are suffering now is nothing compared with our future glory." Romans 8:18

This world is short lived!  Check out the charge at the end of this passage in The Message.

"That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times.  The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next.  Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead.  Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens."