Friday, February 12, 2016

Learning Lessons in Hard Times

People always ask the question, "Why does God allow evil?  If God is so loving, why does he let us suffer?"  And yes, I have asked that question myself about 100 times in my own life.  Why did God let me go through so much stuff?  And why does he let so many I know go through so many hard times?  My current best answer to that is that we go through hard times so that we will learn a lesson from our pain.  Just like a parent might spank their child to help them learn a lesson, God essentially spanks us sometimes.  It sounds silly, but we are God's children, and sometimes we need to be spanked.

Our family had some crazy bug issue over a year ago for kind of a long time.  I asked God why he was letting us be tortured by the seemingly invisible bugs for so long.  I felt him say to me that it was so that I would grow in wisdom.  The wisdom that I learned from that was VACUUM.  Every day.  Or at least every week.  God was trying to show me that I can't get lazy about house cleaning or else all kinds of bad things can happen.  I think the cause of the bugs was milk that was spilling out of my daughter's bottles; Dr. Brown bottles, which aren't made at well as their ratings say I found. The milk got on the carpet and that probably attracted some kind of bugs that flew in through the screens when I had the windows open.  So I grew in wisdom through that hardship.  I learned the importance of keeping the carpet clean so we won't get bugs and that I need to mop and vacuum a lot. Also, for any that might currently have any bug issues, buy some anti-fungal body wash, mix in a spray bottle with water, and spray your whole house down a few times.  That was worked the best for me. :)

Then recently God let me have some crazy stomach issues.  It was so bad I seriously thought I was on the verge of dying for a couple weeks there.  I asked God why again and the verse came to my mind, "The Lord disciplines those he loves."  So I'm pretty sure God was again disciplining me and trying to teach me a lesson.  I have been eating too much cheese, and too many brownies and cookies.  I know I need to eat veggies more but I have rebelled against that for literally like the last 10 years.  I think that was because I felt forced to eat veggies so much as a kid, but that was good of course.  So I'm finally going to start buying veggies and eating them more.  I've always been good about eating fruit but not veggies.  And I need to stay away from cookies and brownies, like I always knew I needed to.  God disciplined me in my eating, but that was to my benefit.  If I start eating better now, I won't have all the possible health issues I could have when I'm older.  So praise God for disciplining me.  Amen. 

So I learned lessons from my pain; be more diligent in cleaning and eat better.  Both are great lessons to learn.  Don't be lazy about my living space and don't be lazy about my body.  Perhaps going through some kind of pain was the only way that I would learn those lessons. 

It's hard to understand when the hard times are happening though, for why God lets them happen.  We know God is in control of everything, so it can be so confusing when he lets us go through hard times, especially if we think we are doing everything we are supposed to be doing to honor Him and be a good Christian.  But God is always pruning us.  We all always have ways in which we can improve and grow.  Amen.  And often times, God uses painful situation in order to help us grow better.

May God show us all where we need to improve in gentle whispers and may we listen so that he doesn't have to shout at us through painful situations.  Amen.  May God protect you from harm and help you where you need it always.  God bless ya'll! :)

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