Blessing, suffering and growth

Last Sunday morning, when I was speaking at the morning service in Falkirk, Scotland, my friends Alex and Amy were leading the morning service in Alhaurin, here in Spain. Inviting people to look back at 2012, they gave everyone two slips of paper and asked people to write down where they had "drunk from the cup of blessing" and where they had "drunk from the cup of suffering" during last year. Then those dozens of anonymous slips of paper were pinned to the wall of the church - for anyone to read and pray over. I saw them yesterday, and it was heartbreaking to read of the challenges and suffering that our church family had been through in 2012: relational conflicts, bullying at school, loss of employment, financial difficulties, serious illness, death and bereavement, etc. But it was encouraging to read of the blessings that people had experienced during 2012: financial provision, healing from sickness, ministry success, family members coming to the Lord, etc.

At yesterday morning's church service, we took this theme a bit further: considering how the bridge between suffering and blessing is called "my Redeemer lives." Jesus is the one who can take our suffering and ultimately turn it into blessing. The pastors asked the congregation for testimonies of ways that previous years' suffering had been turned into blessing during 2012. Several people shared their stories; I was able to tell of how my family had spent Christmas day 2011 in hospital, with my Dad critically ill... and how, thanks to God's power, we were able to spend Christmas day 2012 at home as a family, with my Dad continuing his recovery from illness and preparing to celebrate his 60th wedding anniversary in just a couple of months' time.

(Yes, this is a year of special events for my family: my Mum had her 80th birthday yesterday, my brother will turn 50 in March, and my parents will celebrate their Diamond Wedding just before Easter time.)

Last week, at the leadership development centre in Alhaurin, we had two days together as a team: thanksgiving for 2012; prayer and planning for 2013.  During one of our times of worship, Rite again picked up the theme of the cups of blessing and suffering..... and added a third cup to the table: the cup of growth. As we reflected on the good times and the hard times of 2012, we also shared together the ways that we had grown stronger or grown in God during the year that lies behind us. Isn't it interesting to see that, although growth can come both during suffering and during blessing, it's sometimes true that our growth happens more in the hard times than in the easy times? It's when we rely on God in the most difficult of circumstances that we discover He is who He says He is, and more, and we are strengthened in our knowledge of God and relationship with Him.

Whether you know hard times or good times in 2013, I pray that you'll know growth.... and that you'll be stronger at the end of this year than you are at the beginning. God bless you.