Emotion

I have experienced a sort of emotional high since I have been en route to Africa with schooling and training. There has been a joy that has overridden my other emotions most of every day. However, I have had some significant dips in that emotional high recently. In the past week several of my friends and one of my family members have experienced very difficult circumstances and for them my heart has broken.

I'm recognizing that the joy of my life in Christ prevails over the emotional lows, but that does not prevent me from questioning why God allows so much suffering in those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, knew suffering. For the last 20 years of her life she was bedridden and in constant pain. Her writings indicate her unwavering trust in God and how she did not focus on her own suffering but focused on bringing encouragement to others.

"I often think how wonderful it is to have nothing to think of, no care in all the world but to do His will and finish His work. There are sorrows--there must be in a world full of sorrow--but, 'This one thing I do' can be our work. And there is joy in that. I have been reading Ephesians 3:10, 11. 'The powers in the heavenly places' are real powers. If only we by the grace of God live lives that glorify our Lord, if only we are not overcome by griefs and trials such as those we are passing through now, but look above them and go on in peace, then something of the wonderful wisdom of God will be shown in in those unseen Watchers. It is a solemn thought, for of course the opposite is true. If we are 'overcome of evil' we show nothing of His love and grace and all that is meant by His 'manifold wisdom', Oh may He help us not to lose this opportunity to glorify His name." Amy Carmichael, a letter to a friend in Candles in the Dark

"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith--that I many know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any mans possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:8-13

"Think of yourself as belonging first to your Lord and then to all, servant of all. In serving any one of the 'all' you are serving Him who is your Lord. Life is never lonely or empty if we keep Him where He must always be, in the first place." --Amy Carmichael