Times of persecution....??? WHY???

Clearing up after Kansas Storm
We all go through times of persecution, we have struggled with jobs, and pet deaths, we have struggled with family issues, and moving first to Tennessee which seemed to promise good things, and it did turn into a blessing with the many friends we found at the lovely church there, and time getting to know my husbands family, and then the trip back that in itself was an awful experience, LOL. 6 kids 2 rabbits 1 dog the biggest uhaul known to man and no relief drivers, and near the end the constant screaming of the youngest, that was sooo fun.

We have ached as we watched them try to find a good vein in the arm of our son with downs during many illnesses that have left him dehydrated after mere hours and then the last two weekends both of my youngest children have landed in the ER. One with an allergy to dye free children's Benadryll, imagine that and the other with a mysterious infection that has caused horrible swollen lymph nodes on the side of his neck. He is healing after two IV with meds, and oral antibiotics, and Motrin and Tylenol. We also ended up making doctors visits due to the 5 year old having swollen lymph nodes, both are on the road to recovery. Praise God!!!

You know the saying when it rains it pours, I fully understand this saying. I wish I didn't. I am so weary from very little sleep, and I mean VERY little sleep. I got to sleep at 3:30 this morning and woke up at 4:30 and then 7 to get my 9 year old up for school. Anyway with all the being up every 3 hours for giving medicine and then all the er visits and doctors visits, my normal sunny outlook is not so sunny. And usually I can try to see the lesson in whatever is going on, but today I have been struggling with not just yelling at people.

I went to pick up the prescription for my 5 year it had been an hour since the nurse said she would call in the medicine. I went to the nearest Walmart pharmacy, they tell me it has not been called in, I ask her to check again and then recheck spelling. I KNOW they called it in. They say nope nothing. I go and call the doctors they say yes right after we spoke we called it in left a message on the answering machine they use......... I go back and ask again they say no nothing here, so I spelled the entire name again and she says nothing. So I ask her the check the phone messages She assures me that they just checked them...... I insist so she asks the pharmacist to check messages.... she gets on there I am waiting and then she says to me you might as well sit down I have alot to check, I felt going wow really I thought they were just checked. I did not, see one of those times I bit my tongue... I sit down and wait 10 min trying not to fall asleep.... to here we have it. We will put a rush on it and tell them your waiting right here. Which I am very thankful for.

Why, why would someone tell me that the messages had JUST been checked. Anyway finally got the medicine got home and when the door was being shut somehow my youngest managed to shut his finger in it.....He is fine a bit bruised and a cut but okay other wise....

COME ON I am thinking WHY WHY WHY.... God never promised us that being a Christian was easy or that once we are saved we will never have trials in fact I think it can almost guarantee that there will be trials but we have God there to help carry us through....

I was reading some in the Bible was reading through 2 Corinthians 4 verses 8 through 18 really called out to me.

8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

13 It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken."[b]With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. 15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

I must say that lately I feel hard pressed from all sides, I am working on the remembering I AM NOT crushed I may be perplexed, IE all my whys up above, I am working toward not in despair, I FEEL persecuted, but KNOW I am not abandoned, I have been feeling struck down, BUT I KNOW I AM NOT DESTROYED

Verse 16 tells me not to lose heart, I need to remember that, even though I am feeling low and struggling, God is with me and therefore indeed I should not lose heart, and as 18 reminds us not to remain fixed on what we see cause this is temporary, this will NOT last, Gods love and salvation is eternal.

Thoughtfully
Amy