There is a big difference between everyday interruptions, nuisances, and stress and life-altering calamities.
Susanna was a woman who knew intimately the painful crush of afflictions and loss. Twice the parsonage she shared with her husband, Samuel, and their children was burned, reducing nearly all they owned to smoldering ashes. And of her 18 children, only 10 survived to adulthood. This woman knew grief, poverty and daily survival battles most of us never will.
Henri Nouwen helps us see more clearly even when our hearts are hurting when he said, “Every time there are losses there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.”
If Susanna asked in faith that her difficulties, her losses, her pain might tug her heart more closely to Christ, then shouldn’t I? May this be true of you and me that in both our disappointed and our dark hours we will call unto Him who alone can bring good out of tragedy.
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, It is well, with my soul. Choose thanks today for your lot—to Him who can center our soul.
Powerful message. I’d like to read more about Susanna Wesley.
Just what I needed today and actually at this very moment!