Encouragement

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"Consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith developes perserverance."
James 1:2-3

There is joy in suffering. Not happiness or elation but joy. Joy is NOT a feeling. Joy is an inward knowledge of a good thing. GOD is the source of true joy. When we hope in the Lord, we recieve joy because we can look forward to the blessings we have in store.
When things are going well in our lives we are aware than God exist and we can thank His that things are going okay. But when things get hard we REALLY begin to depend on God with all of our hearts, so we really begin to see what kind of God He is. We begin to press in to the reality of His love. We begin to experience that goodness of God firsthand. Its nice to hear about it from someone else but OH the feeling that comes from seeing it in our own lives! How great!
I recently had a problem in my thyroid where I could not swallow properly. That was not fun because I could not eat and then my stomach felt bad. So once that got regulated and I began to be able to swallow again and enjoy food BOY did that feel good!!! Now, I do have a conditon in my thyroid that may require surgery. It was scary to hear about, but I got a sneak preview of how powerful God was when we helped me to swallow again!! He has shown me more and more of how He can change around a situation, a situation that seems hopeless and scary.
Gods perfect love casts out all fear. We have to go through some hard things in this life, but nothing can compare to the goodness of our God and His faithfulness. All perserverance is is holding onto the promises God gave us. The promise that He will come through. Just remember-in every situation up to this very moment, God has worked it out. He's not going to stop now, just because we are scared. A little fear isn't going to stop God from being God. But a little faith will help us feel better about the whole thing. Fear will lie to us. Faith will remind us not to fear. And in EVERY trial we face, God will work it out! He promises!

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