Faith during trying times - sometimes difficult, always rewarding.

A wise teacher once wrote: "Trials are proofs of God's care." In the midst of challenging periods in our lives, most of us have a tough time believing that the pain and suffering we are going through could possibly be evidence of a caring Father-Mother, God.  So, what does this quote mean?
Well, it comes down to how much do we need to grow spiritually in our lives to truly know Love's heavenly kingdom.  The true saints among us live their lives facing the same kinds of trials that we do, but their faith in omnipotent Love is so great that they see beyond the pain to the true reality of being.  They have gained such faith by years of devoted prayer and communion with God.  The suffering they endured early in life taught them a most valuable lesson of faith and trust in Almighty God.  We suffer because we need to grow in our perception and understanding of spiritual, perfect reality.  Our inner spiritual voice reminds us that Love is more potent than hate, Life is more real than death, and Good is more powerful than evil.  When we confront the illusory forces of evil or human error, our human sense of being is troubled.  Much like trying to read a book while riding in the back seat of a car on a hilly, curvy road, the human brain is receiving mixed signals.  The eyes say we are sitting still reading a stationary book while the inner ear testifies that we are moving up and down, right and left.  The end result of these mixed signals is we feel carsick.  Likewise, when our spiritual sense is telling us that divine Love is our life and that we are safe and protected, sometimes our mortal sense tells us otherwise, and we suffer.
Our response to this suffering is key.  Do we accept the suffering as real?  Do we allow the suffering to overcome our sense of God's care?  Do we look elsewhere than Spirit for relief?  If we do any of the preceding, we allow ourselves to lose the lesson we could learn.  If we wallow in the suffering and believe it is reality, we suffer more and defeat the only real purpose suffering has - to prod us into a greater faith, a more steadfast turning to divine Mind.  The result is that we must continue to suffer until we reach that point where we awaken and allow suffering to refocus our minds.  When we finally begin to reject the suffering for its unreality, we will see the true purpose for its seeming presence in our lives.  That truth is telling us that we need to turn more to Spirit and Love and look away from matter and error.
The old adage about suffering, "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger" applies.  If we turn our thoughts and lives to spiritual being and goodness and find that the trial we were facing is behind us, we can rejoice because we have risen up higher in the scale of existence.  We have added a new piece of evidence to our mental file folder declaring that Spirit can be trusted to overcome matter, and we are blessed by this addition.
So, since divine Love cares dearly for each and every one of us, that Love continues to remind us that we should look away from error, evil, and matter and turn wholeheartedly to Spirit.  Those reminders that we get look a lot like trials and suffering, but they are really just heavenly wake-up calls.  The Bible says: "Rejoice in all things!"  Even suffering can be a call to rejoice when we let it teach us to look to God.  Divine Love is faithful and will deliver us from the lions' den or the fiery furnace.  Likewise, Love will meet any human need we have, including the need for relief from a suffering human sense of pain in life.  So, after the first blush of fear that may accompany a trial or test of our faith, resolve to look heavenward.  As Jesus advises us, "...know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."(John 8:32)


Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff,-- a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not half remember this in the sunshine of joy and prosperity. Sorrow is salutary. Through great tribulation we enter the kingdom. Trials are proofs of God's care. Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.  (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, 66:6)