I recently shared a three-part series on the enCourage blog, a blog for the women’s ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Here’s a preview of the third article. (You can see the first two posts here and here.)
When I battled a rare cancer in 2010-2011, the effect of the chemotherapy on my platelets caused me to need a clinical trial and receive treatment hundreds of miles away from my home and my young family. I was suffering in a way that I never had before, and I was completely powerless to change my circumstances.
A friend of mine read about a study in Greece that found that eating purple grapes would boost your platelets. It was on the internet, so it was probably true, right? I started eating large amounts purple grapes. You can probably guess how much impact it had on my platelets. That’s right—none at all. It was one more reminder of my weakness. I was suffering, everyone I loved was suffering along with me, and there was nothing I could do but sit in a beige recliner, passively receive the chemotherapy that made me feel awful, and beg God to heal me.
When we’re in a winter season of suffering, we often feel weak and powerless to fix our circumstances. If we could change things and get ourselves out of that season, we certainly would. This feeling of weakness is an unavoidable part of our experience of suffering. And yet, when we consider God’s faithfulness to us in suffering, we can start to view our weakness as one of His gifts in our winter seasons.
To read the rest of the article, head over to the enCourage blog. I hope it blesses you if you are in a winter season of suffering today.
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