"He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship." (Lamentations 3:4-6) It is not easy to live with hardship, and to suffer enduring pain. We can lose ourselves in the hardships that come into our lives. Not long ago I was talking to someone who told me about a member of his family that was so caught up in a disappointing event that the person had a mental breakdown over it. We can let our hardships become so all-encompassing that it is difficult to see beyond them, even single events in our lives can swallow up the good things, the many wonderful events, that God would have us focus upon instead. I think that for those of us who suffer, and have suffered much difficulty in life, if we were to balance everything … [Read more...]