Suffering and Character

[Chad]

My life has been littered with mistakes-my own mistakes and the mistakes of others. And in every one of those incidents, God came along, picked up the litter, and put it back together in a way that transformed it into a monument for faith. I can look back and say, "It was at that very point, in the midst of that adversity, that this part of my character began to grow and my relationship with God really deepened."

It's our nature to seek quick relief from pain. But Helen Keller--a woman well acquainted with adversity-said, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

Let God transform and redeem the suffering in your life.

- Steve Arterburn

Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state. - George Eliot

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. - C.S. Lewis