-Terri Fornear
December and January were interesting months for me personally and as an “Abiding Coach.” Three of our cancer families “lost” someone they love. My 96-year-old dad visited us for 14 days and I experienced the confusion, body weakness, and hearing loss of aging. All this made even everyday issues of people, like hard marriages, unmet goals, and financial fears, seem overwhelming. My own ability to “STOP” suffering and fix this world frustrated me. I wanted to hide under my bed, plug my ears and close my eyes.
Then that still, small voice softly let me in on HIS heart:
“Terri, I am sharing the fellowship of My suffering with you as you have the courage to feel. Every time ‘Creation groans’ with a death cry, or a decaying sound, you are hearing what I never wanted MY creation to experience. I know the story of Adam and Eve is simple, but what happened is simple. Giving them freedom to know MY love, My provision, My creation, My personality – without death in the atmosphere – was always My intention. Yet they didn’t believe My voice was full of love and good for them. Giving them the freedom to choose My love was the only way they would know Me and My love.”
Paul said this in Philippians 3:10-11,
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Suffering can open eyes and ears to receive His love – for all eternity.
