Flourishing > Suffering
To suffer well, gosh, that statement feels like an oxymoron. How do I suffer well, and not let the weight of uncertainty overcome me? What is suffering? It is to be within an unknown. Unknown health diagnosis. Unknown of what the future will look like after the loss of a loved one. Unknown of what a marriage will be after adultery. An unknown future in the face of a current pain. It's hard to see our future when the foundation of our reality has been fractured, and we are stuck floating in the middle of the right now and not yet season. How do we describe hope in the midst of suffering? It is the purest example of what faith feels like, or can be. To know that your current reality will not remain forever, but joy will come again. It is the hope we hold onto as we look at our children, and even though we have to let go of someone from our past, that there is a whole generation of beings who are yet to be on this earth that we would lay down our lives for, a love unknown. Hope comes and makes the daily task of walking through our current reality a little brighter. The light slowly being unveiled as life just became a dark tunnel again. So what does it mean to suffer well? To remain gaze-fixed on the light, to hold onto the hope of the future, to walk boldly in your current reality, choosing to accept the thickness of the veil surrounding you, knowing you will breathe lightly again, even when it feels like all hope is lost. It's finding the one glimmer in the darkness that you can fix your eyes upon and believe in a brighter future. It is said that flourishing and suffering cannot coexist; one has to be in place of the other. However, suffering can lead to change, which in turn leads to endurance and hope, two things needed to flourish. Job suffered well, even when his friends told him he was foolish and that he must've done something wrong, sinful even to make the God of the universe cause him to suffer so profoundly, but what we see is a man in the face of the most devastating circumstance hold fast to his God and his truths. Today, we still read his story as the example of what it is to suffer well.
Hold onto hope today; grab onto the hem of Yeshua's robe and don't let go. Hold fast to him and ask him to see a future hope. It's in the little moments he walks with you, carrying you day by day. It's the songs on the radio, the beauty of your kids' silliness and laughter, the painted sky, the birds flying by, an open field, a honeybee on a flower, a hummingbird by your window. When all hope seems lost, ask him to show you the little things that bring a glimmer, until the next hope is revealed. Hold on, it's going to be ok, you will FLOURISH again.
"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." Isaiah 40:8
What has he promised you?