I can’t tell you how many times since my husband left I’ve heard phrases like these from loving and very well meaning people:

🌿“BECAUSE you’ve suffered so much, I know good things are coming.”
🌿“I know that you will get married again BECAUSE you deserve it.”
🌿“BECAUSE you’ve suffered like Job, you will be blessed like Job.”

Do you see how subtly off these statements are?

Of course I know they are spoken with love and so much hope for my future. And God does often say yes because He is full of grace and kindness. But thoughts like these - that I’m owed gifts after suffering- they sink in, take root and are usually unhelpful for my heart. Why? Well, because they aren’t Biblical truth.

The danger seeps in when we presume, expect and feel entitled to gifts BECAUSE we’ve suffered.

Nowhere in the Bible do we see that after a season of suffering we are promised our desires will all be met or that only good things and happy days will follow suffering. Let’s remember that He is the God who sometimes says NO because He is preparing something better for us.

Dear wife, be careful what you believe about God in the midst of your suffering. Let’s look to the Bible to inform our thinking. Here are four truths we can hold on to today:

🌿 Jesus is with you before, during and after your trial (Mt 28:20, 2 Tim 4:17). His presence is your good (Ps 73:28).
🌿 Your suffering is making you more like Jesus. It is building character, producing endurance, maturity and steadfast hope (Jms 1:3-4). Your suffering is producing for you an “absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor 2:17).
🌿After a season of suffering, GOD HIMSELF will restore, establish, strengthen and support you (1 Pt 5:10).
🌿One day, your suffering will end and you will be with God. He will bend to wipe every tear from your eye. You will be at rest forever as He makes all things new (Rev 21:3-7).

Let’s choose to rest ourselves on the truth of God’s Word as we walk through suffering. Our happy ending may not come on this earth, but it will come. And it will be more glorious than we could ever imagine. A no from God on earth is always preparing us for an ETERNAL and BETTER YES.