??

??

Have you ever felt caught in a suffering cycle??? As though the burdens you already carried were heavy enough and then “number three” catches you by surprise and you feel totally and completely capped out? Quota fulfilled so why is it still raining?

From my experience, it’s sometimes the less significant trials that throw us off the hope wagon.?? It’s that “detail”??- that sense of being kicked while your already down that really seems to ice the cake.

And then sometimes, it’s not a little kick when your lying in the dust…sometimes it’s this full on assault of hurricane and tornado – so fierce and furious that your left breathless, speechless, and often…hopeless.?? How could God allow THIS much pain??? How could HE???

I have pondered these questions several times over the course of my young (very young) 😉 life.?? I remember once several years ago, the Lord and I were having a struggle about the suffering cycle and my heart was getting quite impatient with His answers.?? At that time I was questioning our infertility and I didn’t understand why God would give me a passion for life and a passion to be a mommy and then deny me that blessing.????

One day a friend of mine called to share a relatively minor insult (minor in the grand scheme of things) and I just had a meltdown.?? My friend Dawn had been faced with one trial after another.?? First her health had been at risk, she had a cancer scare, and she was pregnant.?? Then her baby was born prematurely.?? I was the first to hold Zariah in the NICU after her parents.?? She was born at about 32 weeks and weighed barely 4 pounds.?? She was the tiniest baby I had ever seen and I didn’t think she would make it.?? I will never forget holding her and praying for God to spare her.?? I told the Lord that day “I am in deep mourning that you haven’t given me a child BUT I do NOT want my child to be in a NICU.?? Not ever!?? I couldn’t take it.”?? Can you see me writing this with one eyebrow raised and a giggle?

I struck a deal with God.?? Here was the compromise, I was deep in the mire of infertility and it was incredibly painful.?? So painful that my quota of suffering was met.?? Therefore, it should seem obvious that no other pain would come my way.?? When my children were born, they would not die, they would be healthy, and they most certainely would NOT find themselves in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.?? Of course God would honor this, He had inflicted me already.?? He owed me one…didn’t He?

Shortly after Zariah was home from the hospital, Dawn injured herself and broke her elbow.?? That was the injury that sent me over the edge in the kitchen that day.?? You know why??? Because to my way of thinking,??Dawn had already met her quota?? and yet God kept pouring it on.?? I was not happy.?? If He wasn’t giving her a reprieve, than I was vulnerable too.?? I wasn’t just sad for Dawn.?? I was scared for me.?? He might not honor??my plan and I personally thought my plan was pretty fair.?? More than fair.

Then came Tanner.???? He took two babies home and I grieved them but Tanner soothed my heart.?? God blessed my waiting arms with a beautiful healthy baby boy.

Wait…not so fast…miscarriage of triplets.?? That was a heavy blow.?? We are uneven again Lord…back to negotiations.?? Loss of triplets again.?? Then loss of twins.?? Then exremely premature baby.?? HEY LORD!?? LOOK WHO HAS A BABY IN THE NICU!!!??

By the time, I was in the NICU though, I had resolved my negotiations and deal making.?? God taught me much through loss and by the time Ty was born, I was in a very different place.?? I’d like to say this completely resolved the questions of the suffering cycle in my heart…but …that is not so.?? From time to time, God and I still have lengthy conversations about this.??

For example, yesterday Susie calls me from the ER.?? No surprise there.?? When I found out that she was in the ER with a child because of seizures that morning – I naturally, was not surprised.?? This is a normal weekly event in the Jolley household right now.?? When she told me it WAS RYAN (the baby) in the ER because HE was the one that had the seizure I was gasping for breathe!?? “WHAT!!!!?? ARE you kiddin…are you….WHAT????? Ryan did NOT have a seizure.?? That is just not possible!!! WHAT!!!!???”

Susie’s kids are prone to febral seizures when they get high temperatures.?? Now 5 of her 6 kids have had them.?? Febral seizures are not particularly dangerous but they are very scary.?? Ryan had a??five minute grand mal??after having a few days of a high fever.

What to say to Susie??? Why on earth would God allow that…now??? Of all the things!!!?? I was pretty silent on the phone because I could not think of one thing to say about it.?? Next thing??you know – we are both laughing.?? Susie admits that both the paramedics and also the ER team were also laughing.?? Sometimes when the tears have run dry, laughter is all that is left.?? What do you do??? No one meant disrespect by it.?? It was just too big for anyone to comprehend – why oh why oh why now – of all times.?? Part of the reason we COULD laugh was because we felt confident Ryan was okay and would be okay…but still…it was a pretty ironic “kick in the dust”.?? Of all things to happen…

This morning in BSF guess what the topic was??? Yep…”suffering”.?? Our lecture leader raised 8 points on suffering and I thought they were great and worth further??inspection on my part.?? I know that many of you check in regularly to check on the Jolley family and some have admitted to checking with half an eye closed.?? We all ask the same question in our hearts don’t we??? Why sooooo much pain??? Why Rachel, why Jacob, why Landen, and then this week “why Ryan?”

Don’t expect me to answer that either.?? Only the God of all Heaven and Earth and all that??IS could answer that…but we can get a few clues from His word.?? To be honest, reading this list may feel meaningless to you.?? Sometimes, during suffering, words on paper are just that…words.?? I believe though, that if we bank fully on the integrity of scripture and an amazing and loving God, the words in this list could be a powerful tool in teaching us hope.

Before I start the list, I will share a quote from the lecture that was burned into my heart the instant it was said.?? Julie (our leader) shared that a woman who had suffered greatly had authored this quote in answering how she felt about God’s purpose in her suffering.

“Things happen to you
So things happen in you
So things happen through you”

That moved me immensely.?? That is powerful and very??scripturally accurate.?? God??sometimes gives permission for things to happen TO me, but in that suffering, I am changed.?? My??transformation allows God to work through my pain to shine His glory all around.??

Our study was on Romans Chapter 8.?? If you are not familiar with it, you may want to take a moment to look it up.?? It’s well worth the read!

What Is the Purpose for Our Suffering

1.?? Suffering Proves the Reality of Our Faith

How so??? My belief is suffering makes you bitter or it makes you better.?? It takes us apart and makes the most vulnerable places of our soul bleed…then we see what the truth and root of our belief is.?? Do we believe God or not??? I don’t know about you, but facing the reality of my faith has been one of the KEY character refining moments of my faith.?? I had to get to the place where I knew, absolutely knew, that the core of my being embraced God and His sovereignty.?? I thought in my non-suffering day’s that the question had a slam dunk answer, until it was brought under the microscope.?? It’s different to say “God I will trust you – even in this”?? when your children are dying.?? I didn’t know if I could/would do it, until I did it.?? When I did it, it was a moment that changed me.?? Scripture say’s over and over “They were counted as righteous because of their belief”.?? Sometimes we don’t know what our belief really is until it is tried and tested.?? (Romans 4:18-25)

2.?? Suffering Promotes Our Dependence On God

Boy howdy is that true!?? For every control trap I have created, suffering has??set me free.?? When you realize that you are UTTERLY dependent upon God and can’t control outcomes, it takes a huge amount of pressure off.?? I remember sitting in bed one night crying my eyes out.?? The night before I had slept through an apnea alarm because I was exhausted.?? I told Jim that if our baby died it would be my fault for not waking to rescue him.?? I will never forget Jim saying to me “Doni…if Ty dies.?? He dies.?? God will leave Him with us or He will take Him and there is nothing you can do to stop it or prevent it.”?? I sat there stunned at that and let it sink in.?? It settled and gave me joy.?? Jim was right.?? I would do all that I could humanely do for my son but in the end, God would reign.?? Pretending that I was Ty’s hero was only drowning me in fear of my failure and robbing God of Glory due.?? Susie and I talked about this just this week.?? She also admits to being an independant mama who controls everything.?? Yesterday though, she said (quite loudly I might add) “I have learned my lesson!?? I am NOT in control!?? Not one bit!”?? For a control freak, to imagine uttering those words fill you with fear…and then you say them and you realize how desperately you needed to.??

3.?? Suffering Purifies Our Relationship With God

How so??? It gets the pretense out of the way.?? We get stripped down to the very root of our being and then we dive in deep exploring the depth of who God is.?? When we can’t find the answers in the depth of our inward searching, we then must understand the core of God.?? The biggest question for me was not why.?? It was “What is hope?”?? I swallow a lump and blink back tears to??write that.?? “Lord how far will you ask me to go? How much suffering and for how long??? Will I ever feel whole again??? Will my whole life be about loss??? Will I hold on to hope only to lose it?”?? Suffering teaches us who we really are, what we most desire, and how far we fall short.?? It makes us completely exposed and vulnerable without excuse or shallow display of plattitudes.?? We become more honest with ourselves and with our God.?? I don’t think much relationship building can take place when we are immersed in the trivial.?? Suffering has a way of bringing out great truths.?? Then God can really start to work.

4. Suffering Produces Endurance

You??think “you could never” until you had no choice.?? Case in point, me sitting in a NICU telling God I could not survive the pain of a baby in the NICU and definitley no death.?? If I can’t get pregnant, than if??He ever blessed me with pregnancy – no babies would die.??I did not believe I had the endurance for that.?? I still don’t.?? I didn’t learn that I was stronger than I thought.?? I learned that HE IS STONGER than I ever could have comprehended.????”It was there that He carried me”.?? I no longer say “I could never”.?? I don’t trust me but I am learning to??trust Him.?? Trust in Him results in persaverance through the worst of times.??(Romans 5:3-5)

5.?? Suffering Prunes for Greater Effectiveness??

I sometimes tell people??”I would not have liked the person I would have become without suffering.”?? Pruning is a good word for suffering.?? It feels like having a limb torn from your body – especially when the pruning continues for a length of time.?? Have you ever heard stories of those that beat their trees??? True story!?? I have heard of people rolling up newspapers and beating their trees.?? It seems the harsher the conditions a tree adapts to, the stronger it is and the more stamina it has to survive the storms.?? It takes courage to say “Oh please beat me down so you can raise me up!” In my case though, it took that.?? I needed serious pruning, I needed to see the reality of my faith, I needed to see what my dependence on God really looked like before I had any hope of truly weathering the storms.?? I wanted God to look at me and “count me as righteous”.?? The only way to do that was to put my belief to the test.?? It took pruning to do it.?? Am I more effective post pruning??? I believe so.?? This website has over 120,000 hits on the front page and that doesn’t count the hits made directly to the blog bypassing the front page.?? I suspect the true figures would double or triple that because who regularly hits the front page first??? This is not a credit to me.?? Suffering draws people.?? Loss and very premature babies draw people.?? I pray with all my heart that God taught me to hold on so that I could, if even in small ways, help??others.??

“Things happen to you
So things happen in you
So things happen through you”

I’ll admit…at the time of suffering, everytime someone said “You are grieving so that someday you can comfort others” I wanted to smack them.?? Yes I had the scripture memorized but I didn’t want to hear it one more time.?? I had not volunteered to be the comforter and it took me awhile to accept that role with a sense of priveledge.?? That was part of the pruning process to?? – to make me more effective.

6.?? Suffering Promotes Courage in Other Believers

My BSF leader made a funny comment this morning.?? She said “We all love Christian heroes.?? We just don’t want to BE one.”?? True true!?? This point has been proved over and over though.?? When we think we can’t take anymore, we look to those who have gone ahead of us, who have been found faithful, who are refined in character, who look more like Jesus BECAUSE they suffered…and we find courage to take one more step.?? Is that valuable??? Again, we may not want to BE that person, but we are sure grateful FOR that person.?? I have had many testimonies to great faith in my life and there are many people in heaven that I can’t wait to hug.?? They paved the way for me.?? They walked on so that I could follow.?? My heart overflows with gratitude for that and I hope that I am learning to “be” that.

Let me share something that moved my heart in big way.?? This is personal and I probably should get permission to share it but I am taking the risk that those involved won’t mind me shining light on them.?? When we were at the Women of Faith Conference, there was one point where Amanda was sitting beside me and Susie was sitting behind me.?? Susie and Amanda had not met yet.?? Six months ago, Amanda lost her??1 year old daughter Kambrie to a terminal condition.?? Amanda knew all about seizures and their destruction.?? When the lights were low and all was quiet, Amanda leaned over to me and said “Doni, someday that will be you and I”.?? See, Amanda had been listening to great women of faith share their stories of life and loss and live to tell about it, and with hope and confidence in her God was able to say “That is the choice I will make when I get through this grief.?? I will glorify God even in this.”?? Little did she know, Susie standing right behind her, heard her say that.?? A few weeks later while talking with Susie on the phone, she told me how much it meant to her when she heard Amanda say that.?? I also had no idea that anyone heard Amanda’s statement.?? Susie followed up her comment with “I want that to be me too”.?? I cried.?? I am crying again telling you about it.?? (My apologies to Susie and Amanda if I am overexposing you but you both blessed the socks off me in this).?? That is what it looks like to give courage to someone else.?? Amanda did that for Susie and she didn’t even know it.?? Someday Susie will do it for someone else.

7.?? Suffering Provides Opportunity For Witness

I could not count how many opportunities I have had for witness because of the trials in life.?? My mother calls me a “Grief Magnet”.?? She is right…I do tend to attract hurting people because “I get it”.?? I don’t understand the full scale and depth and breadth of everyone’s pain by any??means, but I do know how important love and tears are.?? I do know how it feels to struggle with anger and bitterness and betrayal.?? I know what “desperation” looks and feels like.?? I have wept, plead, argued, debated, locked myself in dark bathrooms, asked God to remove the pain or remove me…been there done that.?? I think sometimes what a suffering person needs is to simply grab onto someone else who suffered and is still breathing…still testifing for the goodness of God.?? I, for one, looked for those people.?? I sought them out by phone, by lunch conversations, by email.?? I found them and I asked them to tell me all they knew.?? I have a list in my head of who I would thank for this (and I have thanked many of them).??

8.?? Suffering Prepares Us To Reign With God

Did you expect that in the list???Scripture tells us that even now we are being prepared for the roles that we will fulfill in our “real” lives.?? The immortal lives we live in our new bodies on a new earth.?? In reading points 1 through 7, it should be obvious that suffering is a primary way to train up a leader effectively.?? In the past I have brought up this point and had people say “That’s all well and good but I don’t relish being a leader now or ever.”?? Ah but you miss the point.?? Leadership in God’s realm is for HIS glory – not our own.?? When we survive the trials of life, THAT is the biggest testimony to HIS goodness.?? Our refining comes from HIM.?? When we gain experience and the faith required to be “called righteous” in His sight, HE gets glory for that.?? I hope that God will give me much responsiblity in His Kingdom.?? Not because I feel capable.?? I don’t.?? Because if He awards me the task, it is because much work was done in refining me for the position.?? I want that.?? I know it will be painful but I want to look like Jesus at the end of all this…more than anything to be like Jesus.

Sometimes we ask ourselves if this could be accomplished in an easier way.?? Sometimes we still cling to that quota and scream unfair.?? We need to remember though that we were not promised fair and just outcomes on earth.?? We weren’t promised endless blessing without pain and suffering.?? Why some suffer more than others??? I don’t know and I won’t attempt to answer but I do know that there is a time for every season under heaven.

Julie didn’t add this point to her list of 8 but I think there is one more that I would add.??

9.?? Suffering??Produces Hope

Suffering teaches us to hope for a better country (Hebrews 11).????Romans 8 teaches that??all of creation groans with anticipation of the renewal and redemption of all things.?? ??Sometimes we get very short sited with our hope.?? We hope that God will fix our immediate problems NOW.?? Or maybe more accurately, we wish God would have fixed them yesterday so that we wouldn’t be suffering today!?? We want to know how the story ends, how it all works out, how He gets glory, how we are “better off”, how everybody wins and we expect it to happen in the land of the living.?? Here’s the rub.?? That wasn’t His promise.?? Why do we expect God to “fix” all things right NOW, when He explicitly said that making things perfect right “now” is not His plan??? Why do we wonder why God allows suffering for US??? Isn’t a better question why NOT us??? Sometimes I get asked “How can God make this equal??? How can I suffer this much and it really be worth it??? If His purpose is to grow me at the expense of my children suffering, can’t I chose not to grow??? He can’t make this up to me if He allows this.?? Nothing could “make this up”.??

Again, when we ask these questions it is because we are making wrong assumptions.?? Yes scripture say’s that God causes all things to work for our good and His glory for those called according to His purpose.???? It’s inaccurate though to then jump to the conclusion that everything that happens in life that is painful happened “just so” points 1 through 8 could be fulfilled.?? Let’s face the facts.?? We suffer because of sin.?? That was the original “deal”.?? Sin, suffering, corruption, death – all would enter the world if man sinned against God.?? God was quite clear about that.?? Man did sin.?? God is not a liar.?? Death entered the world and it did not discriminate.?? We all are going to die.?? God did not then promise to give us freedom from this curse IN THIS LIFE.?? Therefore, why do we place all our hope in our life on earth??? If I try to figure out how it’s really a good thing that ten of my babies died so that my character would improve and God would get glory…as a mother, in the flesh, I don’t think I am capable of calling that “square”.?? Romans 8:24 say’s “But hope that is seen is no hope at all.?? Who hopes for what he already has??? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

I do think that sometimes God specifically chooses us for some hardships for His purpose.?? I think other times, we simply live under the curse and death and sickness and suffering is the way of things and not one of us is exempt from it.?? Therefore, sometimes God simply chooses to allow the natural order of the curse to take place – gives permission for it to impact us – us personally!??

Our hope lies in this…He has promised a new day, a new story, a new life.?? We will not ALWAYS suffer.?? All that is wrong now WILL be made right.?? We just have to broaden our expectations and pay attention to the promise.?? The promise of life eternal.?? The hope on the other side.?? If that life doesn’t seem real to you yet, you haven’t dreamed enough or you haven’t lost enough.?? I never longed more for my REAL life than when my children went home ahead of me.??

I didn’t write this in hopes of trying to “defend God”.?? I can’t speak for Him in your life.?? I can’t tell anyone, including and especially myself, why God allows what He allows in the lives of each of us.?? I do know from experience though, that He brings beauty from the ashes of life… AND THEN He promises a new life…with no sin…no suffering…no death.?? And I long for that home.?? Jesus come quickly.

Romans 5:3-5

…but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.?? And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who He has given us.

??

Note to Susie:?? So much of this we have talked about over and over.?? I wish I had all the right answers.?? Know this though, the trials you are facing has??plunged me into deeper intimacy with Christ too.?? In order for me to defend his goodness to you in light of your suffering, I have to believe Him with everything in me and I mean EVERYTHING…lest how could I look you in the eye right now and say “I know He is good”??? One day, when all is made right, I hope I get to be there when He looks at you and say’s “Well done”.?? I for one, will in that moment fall to my face and say with all the choir of heaven “Holy holy holy is the Lord God almighty.”?? I love you sister.?? Hold on.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.?? Romans 15:13

??

??