Our daughter Sherri is in the hospital with severe pneumonia and an assortment of other health issues that have her very, very sick. Patty has been staying with her for about 16 hours daily, and several of our other daughters are rotating with her. It sounds like they will draw some fluid that has built up around her lungs tomorrow. It is all serious and scary for our entire family and all of Sherri’s friends as well. There is a lot of prayer being lifted up for her. I have been thinking about several Bible passages about trials in our life. One of them is,
James 1:2-4 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

“Consider it all joy.” Does that mean you act like you just caught a huge salmon? Probably not. Does it mean to act happy? I don’t think so. The word ‘consider’ suggests that it is a thinking issue, not an emotional or behavioral issue. I believe it would include three different attitudes or ways of thinking. First, we don’t blame God or get upset that He let this happen or hasn’t healed her yet. Joy is a confident trust that God is always good, whether the result is what we want or not. Second, we are not consumed with the ‘why’ word. Again, that joy would be akin to trusting that God is good and loves us. His ways are often way over our heads; we are OK with that. Third, our way of thinking comes out in our conversations with each other, and our confidence and trust in God grows because of it. Our way of thinking also comes out in our conversations with those who have little hope and joy in their own trials because they have no relationship with God. Our attitude in our trials hugely influences their lives, causing their faith in God to grow, hopefully to the point of accepting Jesus as their Savior.

Sherri has been very influential in her Facebook entries with everyone who reads them. Even her pictures of herself with tubes coming out her nose, she has that cute little smile that communicates “joy.”