Our former senior pastor cut right to the chase and he didn’t mince words. Sometimes it was downright uncomfortable but we knew he loved us enough to tell us the truth. Some even left the church because he was so direct, but our lives were changed because he spoke truth into them. He will always be my spiritual father and dear friend.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
I don’t suppose, Mary, that it is true for you in your current struggle staying alive . . . but it has been true for me and for a number I’ve met . . .
sometimes, the fiery furnaces get soooo hot . . . and the long dark nights of the soul seemingly so excruciatingly horrendous AND ENDLESS
that one is tempted to wonder if God is sadistic.
Mercifully, He IS THE OPPOSITE. But in the midst of the fiery furnace . . . one can wonder . . . being human and all.
There are things a lot worse than pain. Pain is very instructive . . . for the teachable.
And, it can be an offering, a sacrifice . . . not in a chosen masochistic sort of way . . . sick is still sick and crazy thinking is still crazy thinking. But when that is one’s thrownness—one best offer it up as a sacrifice to Him who bore our sorrows and was/is touched with the feelings of our infirmities and who stands WITH US IN the fiery furnace.