Through the shifting seasons of my life I’ve been flushing out a lot of frustrations that were buried within me. Faithfully I sit at the feet of Jesus daily, crying out in prayer, but my frustration brought out a deep wrestling that was occurring in my heart over prayer. I am faithfully, consistently, and patiently attempting to live out Psalms 5:3, “In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.” All these questions were building in me and I began wrestling over them that I came to a point where the only prayer I’ve been praying was in the form of questions. Asking, Lord, is this what my prayer life is made up of? Is this it? Am I understanding how this works?  Have I missed something? What is the point of all this prayer? On Thursday morning, after spending significant time in Romans 5:2-5 I decided to put God to the test for 4 days. I had one objective–to ask the Lord to show me how to truly rejoice in suffering. How to fully grasp Romans 5:2-5 in a way I didn’t understand in my flesh. I didn’t want to just read the words on the page, but I asked for the Spirit to penetrate my soul and transform me over the next 4 days.

“through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we[a] boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we[b] also glory in our sufferings,because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 5:2-5

I asked God HOW do I rejoice? What do I rejoice in? I don’t understand how to live this out daily.

Renew my heart. Change my attitude.

And He did.

He answered in whispers and intimate moments.

To rejoice in sufferings right now means I get to fully experience and know true HOPE, and to receive the fullness of hope I need to rest in His powerful all-consuming love for me.

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.  Psalm 62:5

This weekend I took a challenge with God and He changed pieces of soul I never thought could be touched and He transformed my prayers to new depths. I verbalized prayers that I never thought would utter from my heart. See, I always praised him for bi-products of suffering. I had my list of things I could find to be thankful for but I had never thanked him for the actual object of suffering. My heart ached and with deep difficulty I chose to verbalize the words, thank you Jesus for this tial-infertility-for this suffering. I cried. Every fiber within me fought back in resistance. I did not want to tell Jesus thank you for this trial infertility, because thank you felt like utter defeat. For 4 years I’ve faithfully prayed for the Lord to take this trial from me. Like Hannah in the book of Samuel, I bitterly begged him to remove the punishment he gave and then I’d thank Him after it was over. After the trial, after the miracle I would praise him for suffering. Even though I knew it wasn’t true to God’s character to punish his child like this, I continued to believe the lie. My transformed prayers still include frustrations, weariness, longings and laying all my requests at His feet—but they now end with a teary-eyed, aching heart, thank you. He showed me that great joy and deep sorrow can be lived out, together, hand and hand. I rejoice in my actual trial–Thank you for choosing me to suffer, to grow my perseverance, character and for giving me hope. I get MORE hope through walking in suffering. I will experience greater hope that does not disappoint me, because God has poured his love into MY heart.  All of this suffering is not about my story or glory– it is for you Jesus, your story, your great glory. I don’t fully understand it all but I chose to rest in his love. To trust. To rejoice. To hope.

Will you join me? Lets be people of hope.

I dare to hope.

Katie

(Click here if you’ve missed Part 1-5 on the blog Daring to hope)

“It’s not enough to just have hope. We must pursue hope, practice hope, and preach hope.”- Rick Warren ‏