Beloved, are you being sifted? Has God permitted the enemy to launch a full-scale attack against you? God knows what He's doing. He isn't looking the other way, and He's not being mean to you. Maybe this is the only way He can get you to attend to the old so He can do something new. Grab onto Him for dear life! Give Him full reign to remove anything in you that needs to go. Hasten the end of the process. Sift, dear one. Sift!

Sometimes the worst conditions can often provide the best atmosphere to act in faith. God doesn't want our confidence regulated by our audience. If faith-discouragers can shake our confidence badly enough to disable us, our confidence may be in ourselves instead of God.

We'll probably never learn to enjoy our storms, but we can learn to enjoy God's presence in the midst of them.

Affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. Romans 5:3—4

But for those who resist insisting on idyllic circumstances and faultless people, new beginnings can be had.

We'll probably never learn to enjoy our storms, but we can learn to enjoy God's presence in the storm!

The goal of life is not the absence of pain. It's the presence of glory. God's glory. And sometimes that comes most vividly with pain. Not only have I learned that pain doesn't kill; I have learned that I will never lose or be betrayed by the one thing with absolute power to destroy me—God Himself.

It is necessary to pass through many troubles on our way into the kingdom of God. Acts 14:22

Yes, Christ can bring fruit from His followers' incalculable suffering. But on this side of eternity, the point isn't making it worth it. It's about making it matter.

We may as well accept faith challenges as a fact of life and not be shocked or feel picked on when they come.

Perhaps the most profound miracle of all is living through something we thought would kill us.

If God has allowed something difficult to happen to one of his children, he plans to use it mightily, if the child lets him.