GUEST POST: May the ailing take heart!

[Written by Sara Nelson (as one that suffers from chronic illness)]

Sometimes when I am extra sick I have to give myself pep-talks, that’s what this is:

Let not anguish eclipse from your soul the beauty of His affection! You must cling to the hope He lovingly placed within you, He’s hid not what eternity holds.  You must bear it as a good solider and be delightfully cheered by the everlasting reality He has in store.  You are daily drawing nearer to the only home where you will be at rest, take comfort and withstand bravely.

The literal pain you suffer in body or circumstance is real, there’s no need to deny its existence or pretend it hurts you not.  But where are you to go when hurt?  There is One who mends.  Perhaps He will mend your heart instead of body or circumstance but His mending will be the balm and succor your ailment is truly in need of.  You must have faith in His will as God and Lord!  Oh how you will see His better plan one day!  His ways are far better than yours and you MUST remember that.  He is the author of all that is best for you.  Refinement would not be pleasant for the metal, but gold is an esteemed and precious outcome.  Above all remember that His ability is not lacking, He can heal all, pray fervently and hope with ardent expectation.

Think you not that the lover of your soul has left you to writhe uncomforted in your harrowing travail, these are lies.  The devil would try to break you with such deceit.   The truth is rather opposite than that, your beloved Lord keeps an unceasing vigil by your side, He has entered into your suffering voluntarily.  He bears your grief and carries your sorrows. May the ailing take heart!

Is it not quiet common place among us to realize that if we’d not met with a certain ordeal, life would be very different? And often we realize that the different life would have been void of what we now hold dear.  How well the life of Joseph teaches us that we cannot imagine what He can bring from trial!

It is the courageous prepense to bear things in His strength which will enable one to face the unknown with mettle, to consecrate everything, to pass breaking point and not break.

To endure with patience and fortitude the agony that one day may be known as a mercy will take the greatest of your courage. Go to His word and find all He’s strengthened you with there.  Hold fast to it, make Him your confidence, and hold fast!

“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is Yours.

Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and You are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all. In Your hand are power and might, and in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.”-1 Chronicles 29:11&12