There is a quote in a book called “the Shack” that says
” Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.”    Isn’t that a beautiful statement?  The fact that grace can take suffering and make something colorful and beautiful out of it, something life altering and changing, is amazing to me.  Take lupus for instance.  I never would have thought, when I was diagnosed with this illness that it would ultimately be a positive in my life.  Although it is trying at times, it is also a growing opportunity, a time for sharing with my children how to rely on God, how to pray, how to have faith and trust that God can get me through.  It is a chance to work towards a cure, a time to bond with others who are in the same boat I am and to give others a word of encouragement when they have a rough day.  Grace uses times of suffering to bring color into my own life!

Think about the trials in your own life…turn those times around and look at them from a different vantage point.  Rewind those moments…relook..rethink…see the colors…the facets…the glimmers of hope and grace.

God doesn’t bring the suffering but He does use those moments for his purposes!

I highly recommend the book the shack by William P. Young.