“Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.”  Psalm 54:4

Embracing Difficulty

Part 1

This letter came from our missionary in South Africa. She has been battling cancer and has had several harsh setbacks. She graciously shares her struggles from time to time so that we can be praying for her. Today and tomorrow, we will hear her battles and progress in her own words, and her testimony will encourage each of us.

A week from today I start the new chemo. I have been dreading this—especially in light of the fact that on the original treatment I would be finishing this week… and now I have to start all over again. It’s a longer treatment. I’ll be on it for six months. And because it’s a new one, I don’t know what to expect, or how it will impact me, and what side effects I’ll have.

So, in the midst of my dreading all this, the Lord spoke to me a couple weeks ago. In fact, He used my own words to speak to me.  

Some years ago I did a teaching on “Growing Through Times of Difficulty and Weakness.” During the difficult times we can grow, or we can actually go backwards in our spiritual walk, depending on our responses to the hard situations.

One of the things I’ve learned is that we need to “embrace” the difficulty, be it small or large. It’s a choice we can make in regard to how we respond in our hearts. The temptation is to pretend it’s not there, to ignore it, or to just hope it’ll go away. But if we do these things, if we’re not honest and open about it, we miss what God intends, and we miss the love and support of people’s prayers.

We can also choose to draw on our own strength and reserves—or even “fake it”—but that only takes us so far. Pretty soon our strength is gone, and the situation is usually harder by then.

We can, alternately, choose to focus our attention on another area of our life rather than the one that is staring us in the face. I love a quote from Floyd’s book Holiness and the Spirit of the Age in regard to this option: “Humility releases us from hiding and pretending to be something we are not. It allows us to be known for who we really are. A superficial world encourages us to cover our weaknesses. Humility and godliness sets us free from this kind of thinking.”

Tomorrow, we will hear the conclusion of this sweet sister’s message to us. 

“Father, train our focus on You and others when we are in pain and facing great difficulty. Thank You for working through our situations. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”