"What You Gain From What You Lose."

Where is the springtime weather? One day it is shorts weather and the next not so much. Any way I want to thank all who came to the house Tuesday night for the food and movie, next time we will have a bigger T.V. and more space. If you missed the movie we will show it again in a few weeks.
In the past few weeks, I have been reflecting on where I have been both in my spiritual life as well as in my physical life. On Monday I was at school and had a little down time, so I went to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. While I was sitting there one of my classmates came by and I called out to him, Ted is his name. He and his dog Apollo are on their way to get something to eat. Apollo lives for 2 pm when he is off duty and can eat and take a roll in the grass. You see Apollo has to be the eyes for Ted.
Ted came and sat beside me and we talked about the great weather. Ted asked if I was ready for "America's Favorite Past time"? Ted loves to play baseball and is planning on taking a trip to Ohio to play in a sight impaired softball league. His team came in third out of 25 teams last year. I was curious so I asked Ted how they play softball. Well he explained they call it beep ball. It is a lot like softball, only the bases beep. That helps the player know where the bases are or where the ball is coming from, if you have good ears; which, of course, blind people develop. The sighted people have to play blindfolded, and they just cannot process the beeps as the blind players can. They are used to hearing more than a sound. They hear the direction of the sound. So the sighted people don't stand a chance!
No one would question that you miss a lot if you cannot see. However, you also gain some things that other people do not have like an amazing sense of hearing and the sharpening of your other senses. Just ask those sighted people who keep losing to blind people in beep ball!
God has a wonderful way of adding or deepening some precious qualities through our times of loss and limitation and pain. Some of the most unforgettable people I have ever met have been people who've suffered much more than I have, and they will tell you that it was their struggle that made them strong. You may not like the process; you probably will not. However, you will like the beautiful results that can come from the process, if you choose to let it make you better instead of making you bitter.
There is a wonderful statement of how we gain from what we lose in the Word of God. It sheds light on those suffering times when we're asking that perplexing question, "Why?" 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 tell us this: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."
If you never go through a hurting time, you'll never experience the special compassion and comfort of Almighty God. If you've never experienced that compassion and comfort, you have little or nothing to give to hurting people around you. If you'll seek God in your suffering, He will pour those caring qualities into you when you're feeling crushed, overwhelmed, in agony. But they're not just to get you through. He fills you up with resources you never had before, resources to make you a well of compassion and comfort for a world of people in pain; resources that can only be developed through hard times ... through hurting times.
What senses does God want to deepen through your pain? Incredible qualities like radar for the deep needs behind people's deeds. A sense of compassion, which literally means the ability to "feel with" someone. God can use your pain to cultivate a wonderful tenderness in your heart and your responses. People who have been through the valley with Jesus emerge with an amazing ability to care, to wait, and to trust God. And there's this sense of quiet confidence and peace in someone who has been kept afloat by the total sufficiency of Christ when there was nothing else to hang onto. They have this "nothing can sink me" poise of a person who is found out when Jesus was all they had that Jesus is all you need. Honestly, having those kinds of hardship-sharpened senses gives you an edge in the game of life. God wants to use what you are going through to give you the emotional equipment to make you a powerful "make a difference" person. This painful process can give you a powerful tool kit from which to be one of God's wounded healers in a hurting world.