Life is difficult

I don’t think this'll be a news flash for anyone: life is difficult.

It wouldn’t take much for us to come up with a list of woes that plague our nation and the world. And in one way or another we all feel the effects of those woes. Even if our own lives are relatively trouble free, just dwelling on the big issues can make us anxious. Then there are those times when we face painful difficulties in our own lives or those of our loved ones.

Yet in the midst of these difficulties, God wants us to know that he is with us. He wants to tell us that he suffers with us and that he wants to help us by affirming his love for us. In fact, we could make the case that God’s love is most present to as as we work through the difficulties and sufferings we all face.

That truth is spelled out most clearly in this week’s Epistle reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. Reflecting on his own experience, even as he sketches out God’s plan of salvation, Paul wrote, “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” 

In that one sentence Paul reveals how God’s love helped him grow in holiness during his own times of suffering.