more precious than gold

Our friend, Jill, has cancer. Recently, she wrote about I Peter 1:6,7 on her CaringBridge site:

“You have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
great trials.”

It seems that I would choose to do most anything to bypass great trials. I don’t like suffering. A commentary I read says this about suffering:

"Afflictions are but as a dark entry into our Father's house," wrote Thomas Brooks. Christians through the generations of the church have borne testimony to this experience. In the midst of the suffering we are able to see little or no point to it all. So we cry to God, "Why?" Afterward, whether very soon or much later, we find such good resulting from the suffering that we reach the point of being able to say sincerely, "The good I have seen coming out of the trial, especially the benefit of my knowing God far better now, is worth the suffering it took to get me here." Because we value the Lord and his kingdom and the crown of life more than we value ease or comfort, it becomes the choice of realism and wisdom to consider it pure joy whenever we face trials of many kinds. ‘However reluctant we may be to embrace it, we know that suffering rightly received is one of the Christian's supreme means of grace.’(Wenham 1974:79). “

This past week, I have asked Loyd several times: “How did I get through starting school last year?” I realize that God, in his great love, guided me, rescued me, guarded me, and gave me refuge. I know this because the great grief should have killed me…but it didn’t…it has given me something more precious than gold.

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