All Joy! :)

After one of my occasional hospital visit recently, I left the clinic wondering “will it ever get better?” I walked into a pharmacy with my prescription and the drug was quite new in the market so I had to wait for a while until it was dispatched from another location. I sat there balancing my tears and with a shattered heart knowing very well this too might not work but I was willing to try it anyway.

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. James 1:2-3

My heart ached before God, I really have to go through this? Around 45 minutes in, my prescription was ready. I left and went about running a few errands and I was very thirsty. I walked into the same pharmacy again to buy some water and the kind lady called Schola who had attended to me earlier handed me a bottle of water and told me “Don’t pay for it. You were very patient with us earlier and that’s not common. Another person would have just walked out and looked for the drug elsewhere buy you waited. This is us saying thank you.”

I didn’t even realize they noticed, even I didn’t notice or rather it wasn’t a big deal to me that I waited. Perhaps because I was so engrossed in my emotions and I just wanted to catch a breath for a few. If anything, waiting for 45 minutes was nothing compared to how long I have been waiting and hoping  for a good break.

It dawned on me that what felt like “unfair suffering”, God had been molding a character in me. The things that looked like a mountain a few years ago are nothing to me now. Things that once irritated me no longer do. I’m more sensitive towards things and more patient towards many things. I am more peaceful. I’m more grounded. I’ve grown in strength.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope…Romans 5:3-4

I have had a health challenge for a while now (you can read it here https://wambuimk.com/my-battle-of-faith-with-endo/) but from last year June, it’s been the lowest for me. I’ve had a series of challenges one right after the other. I’ve had a surgery, I’ve had to do a fundraiser for the surgery, medical trials that have all failed, important relationships around me becoming messy and while I’m truly grateful for the ability to work through each of these issues, having them lined up one by one did bring me to a place where I was asking…why me God?

In hindsight, these were the building blocks of my patient endurance that gave me new strength and allowed me to grow in Faith and Hope. As each wave hit I’ve had to face the reality of my ultimate weakness (and for majority of us) – my inability to control life circumstances, over and over and to fully turn to God for what I need daily. And just like any good exercise, this has strengthened my muscle of endurance. 

God has helped me see with clarity the areas where I was not aligned with Him. I don’t think I would have seen these things and taken them seriously if they weren’t in the way of what I desperately needed in this season. I have learnt that character is built on allowing God to change us to align us more with Him, and suffering seems to provide just the perfect soil for this kind of growth. I believe that without character, our faith and hope would be fickle, the kind that appears when we believe we are going to get what we want and remains only during “trial-free” periods of life but when seasons of trial come, we abandon the Faith or we fall apart.

Although suffering may seem a lot unfair, it has the ability to produce so much good when we allow it.We have a choice to persevere or perish. We can also be role models to other people as they see us growing faced with challenges rather than falling apart. Through the season I still continued with my MBA studies, I graduated, started a business, my marriage is still great, i have faithfully raised the one child God has given us, I have steered Kingdom projects, still showed up for friends and family, still lifted my hands in praise and worship, and I have embraced every opportunity that God brings my way for my growth and this has inspired a few people around me. My life has not come to a halt because one aspect of my life that has been rocky.

While I certainly don’t wish suffering upon any of you my dear readers, but if you are in it, you can endure too! With God! After winter come spring. After despair comes hope. This is the story told again and again in scripture.

Prayer: Dear Jesus, we rejoice today in our suffering knowing that you too endured the cross for the joy that was set before you and now you are seated in Heaven full of Glory. Today we redirect all our hope and faith towards You who is able to save us. We know that soon, You are turning mourning to dancing and our sorrow to Joy. We are thankful that You never fail and at the end of it all, be Glorified. Amen!