Today for my time with God, I went through the devotional from the Creative Retreat Kit this month. Its called count it all joy. Its talking about having joy even in those trials like James 1:2-4 talks about and what Romans 5:1-5 talks about with trials building endurance and so forth. I don’t know if you have noticed but we might be in one of the biggest trials the entire world has ever faced. The world is struggling right now but there are things to be joyful in these moments about. Things like families getting together and spending time together, places like Italy are having dolphins come closer to the shore, you can see fish in the canals in Venice, birds are chirping in Wuhan China. So even though this is a really bad and hard time in the world, there is still good coming out of it. The verse that stuck out to me from the devotional was 1 Peter 5:10. This verse says: “In His kindness God called you to share in His eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support, and strengthen you, and He will place you on a firm foundation.” This kind of shocked me a little bit. I don’t think I ever recall anyone talking about this verse. I feel like this is a key verse. Its saying “hey look we’re gonna go through sucky times but it won’t always be that way. There will be times where I (God) restore, support and strengthen you. I (God) will put you on a firm foundation where you can stand and dance and praise my name. Trials will only last for so long but there is hope and there is joy that will come out of this trial. Please just keeping going. You’ve got this and I’ve (God) got you.” This verse gives me so much hope because of how true it is. I don’t know how many times in my life where I think I’ve hit the end because it became too much and it slowly got better and I was slowly supported, restored and strengthen. Trials are there to strengthen you. That’s what they do. They help you build resilience, strengthen, and endurance. This trial we (the world) are in right now sucks. We can’t leave our house unless its for essential things, and I may not be the only one, but this is making me go crazy. People are panic buying which causes more panic when you can’t find something that you need. People are being rude and inconsiderate of other human beings. We don’t know who could be carrying the virus without symptoms. We don’t know if we are carrying the virus with no symptoms. This trial is hard. But, I have a feeling we are going to come out of this stronger than ever. We are strong even if it doesn’t seem like that right now. But we truly are stronger than we see.
(here is a picture of the page I did inspired by 1 Peter 5:10)
Hold onto hope and stay strong. Madison Rae <3
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