The other night I was up with my sweet seven year old multiple times, mopping his fevered brow with a cold washcloth and praying for him as he struggled for comfort.  The following day his fever was gone and only body aches and a headache remained.  Today he was altogether perfect.  

Watching our children suffer is terribly hard, isn't it?  And yet this morning at church I was challenged by the depth of suffering other people endure, as well as the eternal purpose behind it.

Because I was raised going to church, I still refer to the main church service as "big church" and any other class as "Sunday School."  This morning after "Big Church" Matt and I met up with our "Sunday School" class.  We often have guest speakers or read through a book on marriage or parenting together.  There are Missionaries we support and outreaches we put our collective money and muscle behind, but in general it's simply a group of families who love one another, celebrating one another's joys and ministering to one another in times of need.

This morning one of the couples in our class shared a bit of their story with the rest of us.  Tom and Melissa told us where they were each from, where they went to school, their professions, how they met, ect.  Then they shared the crux of their tale, the journey they've been on since Tom was diagnosed with MS in 1997.  His episodes came on slowly at first, but in the past 4 years Tom's "slippery feet" (as their four year old son, Charlie refers to them) became harder to ignore.  In these last years Tom has gone from a knee brace, to a cane, and now onto a Segway.  He still teaches at a local HIgh School, though his position as football coach has morphed into coach of the Varsity Girl's Golf Team - which he loves.  

The story they shared was moving, but it was their outlook that we all found inspiring.  

Tom and Melissa both shared openly and even joyfully about how they have grown Spiritually through this challenge.  Tom particularly spoke of his faith in God's Word; where God reassures His people time and again that He will never leave nor forsake us.  "God's got my back and is always with me," he said multiple times this morning.  At the end of their time sharing they asked if we had any questions.  One gal asked, "what is the future going to hold?  And how are you planning for it?"  Tom shrugged and smiled, turned his face Heavenward, and said, "I'm your Huckleberry."

"I'm your Huckleberry" is the famous line from Tombstone, where Doc Holiday pledges with these simple words to do whatever Wyatt Erp asks of him.  Tom was saying the same.  While they try new drugs and procedures and pray for healing, it's this "I-trust-God-every-step-of-the-way" mentality that permeates from their family.  "I'm your guy," Tom's smile boasts, "and I won't stop trusting you."

Suffering in my life is much different from theirs.  Apart from the random fevers and colds we're all healthy;  we have enough money and more than enough love when millions of people around the globe lack both;  and no one in our family has known abuse or intense physical pain.  While I am deeply grateful for the health and the kid-gloves He's treated us with, I can't help but recognize the benefit of Suffering in the lives of those we know.

There is fruit that comes into a person's life when they have walked with God through the fire of Suffering.  The refining fire of Suffering, where dross is burned from the precious metal of our lives, causing us to shine like Gold in the Master Craftsman's hands.     

When a Goldsmith works to purify gold he holds it over the hottest part of the flame, and when the impurities come to the surface he gently skims them off.  And then he heats it up again.  Over and over and over the flames.  I've heard that a Goldsmith knows when his work is finished when he can see his own reflection in his creation.  I think our journey in this life is similar.  As we walk with God through the flames, all the dross is brought to the surface of our lives; sin is wiped away, fear is replaced by faith, and as the impurities are skimmed off the top, we begin to reflect our Maker.

One of my dear friends has been walking through (Suffering through) an ongoing medical fire with one of her children for a long time now.  Allyson's beautiful twin girls were born 10 years ago, and Liz has had one medical complication after another over the course of the past decade.  But 2011 has been the worst year yet.  Infections, internal bleeding, loss of weight, too many overnight stays at the hospital to count...  And there still isn't an end in sight, as no infectious disease team has been able to put their finger on Liz's exact problem or how best to treat her.    But as Liz and her loving family suffer through this, they have all been refined.  All of them.  And they are all reflecting so much of their loving God as they share with others the journey they are on.  

Allyson blogs their experience at http://gratefulme-ally.blogspot.com/ with such transparency and dependency upon her Savior, that those who walk through this life with her cannot help but grow in faith and hope along the way.  And so her Suffering has been not only for her benefit, as she comes to look more and more like Jesus, but for the benefit of others as well.

On December 15th I read Oswald Chamber's Daily Devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, and was inspired to pass it on to Allyson.  Here is what it said:

If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someonewill be the poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God to yourself,and God will use that expression to someone else. Go through the winepress of God where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle to get expression experimentally, then there will come a time when that expression will become the very wine of strengthening to someone else; but if you say lazily - "I am not going to struggle to express this thing for myself, I will borrow what I say," the expression will not only be of no use to you, but of no use to anyone. Try to state to yourself what you feel implicitly to be God's truth, and you give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you. Always make a practice of provoking your own mind to think out what it accepts easily.

Our position is not ours until we make it ours by suffering. The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.

I am so thankful to those around me who have yielded to the winepress in order to offer the rest of us "the very wine of strengthening".  

Mothering for me has proven embarrassingly difficult at times.  I'm awkward here in comparing my trials with the suffering that Tom and Liz know, but in this season of my life raising three little ones is my winepress.  As a matter of fact, it was the above thoughts on "the winepress" that encouraged me to start this blog.  I simply can't be alone as I struggle in this Blessed job of raising young ones.  And so I suffer through my difficulties, that I might 'give expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance."

Whatever winepress you find yourself in today, I pray that you might yield to it.  For the Suffering is for your benefit, as you grow in faith and dependency upon God; and for the benefit of others as you articulate God's goodness and nearness along the way.