Can you imagine a mother giving birth to a child who doesn’t know she’s giving birth to a child? She thinks she’s dying, but she’s bringing life into the world and prolonging life in the world.

Can you imagine Eve when Cain came into the world? Unless God had told her what was going on, she probably thought the Apocalypse had arrived. It had been coming for nine months.

“Getting a little chubby there aren’t you girl?” Adam may have remarked. I doubt if he repeated himself, though, because the first death came later and it wasn’t him.
Tough times sure don’t seem to be a reason to rejoice. (Heb. 12:11) But, these trials never came to stay; they came to pass. While you’re going through them, you may think you’re dying (you may be dying). But, if you’re in God’s will, trials can’t destroy your life, not eternally. God doesn’t want to see us suffer, but hurting is part of the process of winning.

Ask football teams who win, then look at those who lose. The losers quit when the going gets tough, the winners perseve and never quit, no matter what.

I think it’s important to really seek God when we’re tried. Sometimes we accept things with resignation thinking that God’s trying to perfect us, when God had nothing to do with the trial. It was the devil trying to destroy us.

Often, though, our path to victory leads through some pretty tough landscapes. How do we know when it’s God path or when it’s the enemy’s attack? Seek His face with your whole heart. Read His Word. Read everything that applies to your situation. Pray with people who really know God.

If you find that the attack comes from the enemy, you’ll be in a place to pray in faith and trust God to give you the deliverance you  desire. And if God shows you that this is just part of the path you have to follow to get to that place where God’s calling you, well, there is faith to climb mountains as well as faith to tell the mountain to go jump in the lake. Just decide which kind this situation calls for.

“My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either.It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.
God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!” (From Hebrews 12, The Message)

Hmmm …
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.” – WASHINGTON IRVING