“God blesses those who patiently endure testing… Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”
-James 1:12
Life is preparing you for your destiny. Everything you are going through is making you more and more qualified for your true mission and calling. Life is a lot like college. If you let Him, God will write your résumé for you. These seemingly purposeless circumstances that you are going through could actually be training you to help someone who is going through a similar circumstance. It could be a necessary experience that is essential for the next event that will occur in your life. This sequence of events makes life the exciting adventure that it was meant to be.
As I was living through our trials, I noticed that everybody was going through something. If it wasn’t financial troubles, then it was health issues, or problems with the children, or legal problems, or relationship issues, or marital issues. If you average all of the problems of the world together that everybody experiences, I think that problems are passed around to all of us in equal portions. Those that can handle certain problems seem to get the ones they have grace for.
For example, I might have extra grace to handle my wife’s disability, but the man who has grace for his autistic child could not deal with my wife’s speech impairment. Just as I would probably not be able to handle his autistic child. Even the Apostle Paul struggled with his thorn in the flesh. He asked God three times to remove it. But God only replied, “No Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. In your weakness, my strength is made perfect.” (2 Cor. 12:9.)
This is a fallen world that we live in, and until we leave this world, our lives will never be perfect. We will always have problems. When we solve one set of problems, a new set will arise. Every problem teaches us very important lessons if we just take the time to realize that there is a purpose behind each one.
I learned lessons so important from our trials that it was worth all of the pain and suffering that I endured to receive this wonderful thing called wisdom and understanding. Proverbs says that wisdom and understanding is to be desired above all things. I am not sure that Charlene is quite ready to make such a boast, since she paid a much greater price than I. Maybe one day she might be able to agree with me on this point. We all have a destiny. We were all brought to this earth for a reason and a purpose. Unless we find out what that purpose is, we will tend to feel useless and unproductive. Think of the trials and problems in your life as the pressure that is put on us just as a potter exerts pressure on his lump of clay that is spinning on his wheel. He molds it into the pot that he sees fit to create. If the potter doesn’t think it is turning out correctly, he can just mash it all together and start over again.
The world just wouldn’t be the same if that one person born with a great destiny was never born. For example, if George Bailey had not been born in, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, Bedford Falls would have been called Potterville. That town became a wonderful place to live, rather than an evil, selfish town that Potterville became. Just think for a moment how this world would be a much different place without the likes of Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, The Beatles, Alexander Fleming (inventor of penicillin from mold), The Wright brothers, Caleb Bradham (inventor of Pepsi Cola), Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and the list goes on and on.
Every one of them endured problems that they had to overcome. They learned their lessons and gained the wisdom and understanding that made them great. Thus, they were able to change the world. Consider the mothers of these great individuals. Each of these mothers had the awesome responsibility of instilling their child with the fortitude to consider going outside the norm. Again, each of those world changers had to go through tremendous problems that changed them for the better. In fact, some of the problems produced the very answers that changed the world.
Charlene’s life has touched so many lives for the better in her sphere of influence. Some before her stroke, but mostly after her stroke. I believe there will still be more lives that have yet to be affected after the release of this book. She has just begun being used by God to change the world, one person at a time, just as you can.
This is just a another chapter of my book “One Arm One Leg 100 Words, Overcoming Unbelievable Hardships”. You can buy the book by clicking this link. And surely, you will not stop reading it from the beginning till the end of this book.