2 Corinthians 1:1-11
When Rachelle was eight months pregnant with her first child, she sat with a friend who was seven months pregnant with her long-awaited first child, as she mourned the sudden loss of her husband to a heart attack the day after Christmas. It was horror compounded on horror.
Rachelle had no words. She just sat there and recommended she quickly go to the ATM to pull out as much cash as she could before the banks froze their joint accounts. Her advice was useless and certainly lacked any form of comfort. She was not even 30-years-old, they were in their first pastorate, and she had nothing profound to share with this grieving widow.
In 2 Corinthians 1:9, Paul says, “Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” Is that why we go through hard times? So we can rely on God more? Those are not words we want to hear when we are the thick of the pain and difficulty, but once arriving on the other side of the tragedy, this is a truth we can embrace.
Author: Rachelle Miller