"I’ve always wanted to be like those older wiser women in my church who I knew as a child, a student, a young adult. God has provided teachers and mentors my entire life and I am so grateful for them. They knew everything. They knew the depths of God’s Word intermingled with personal experiences and trials I hadn't yet been called to persevere. I could glean (and boy did I) but could not fully comprehend until I too had endured.

And that’s it: we must endure. We must persevere, or we will never know all that he has prepared for us and the depths of his love, provision and purpose for our lives."

“But he knows the way I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” – Job 23:10

My friend Jennifer Mosty, the kids ministry director for Stonegate Church in Waxahachie, Texas, shared the above on social media a few weeks ago. 

Twenty-five years ago – when Jennifer and I were college roommates – I couldn’t understand that a lot of wisdom was being shared in the context of life experiences. I couldn’t apply how challenges and trials as an adult would shape me because I hadn’t gone through many of them yet.

Job lived a life no one would sign up for. His losses seem unbearable and his friends didn’t improve his situation. He was stripped of the children he loved and his livelihood.

But after a lengthy heart-to-heart with the God of the universe, he came out knowing God differently.

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” – Job 42:5

Eventually, my own trials came. They haven’t stopped either, although sometimes they are mine to live and others exist in the lives of people I love deeply.

Living through hard situations doesn’t make them desirable. The unknown is still scary. But, endurance can be the door through which we get to watch God’s redemptive plan unfold before us.

Keep going.

Written by Susan Simmons, director of donor communications for the Buckner International Communications Team.