You're a Jewel!

The Lord their God will save them on that day as the flock of his people. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.     Zechariah 9:16 

The Bible gives us this unusual detail about the construction of the Lord's temple. "In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built." (I Kings 6:7). An unbelievable amount of scraping, hammering, chiseling had to be done on those mighty rocks that were used in the construction. But it was all done out of view and out of earshot of the temple site.

It's a little like the way God "dresses" us, fitting us for heaven. The apostle Peter reminds us that you and I are living stones, and we are being mined in the quarry of earth, a place of noise, chiseling, and clouds of dust. God is using our sufferings and afflictions to hone and shape us so we might fit perfectly into heaven's landscape, where there is "no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool." Where there is no suffering. No tears, pain, sorrow, or death. 

What It Takes to Struggle with Something Hard

By Rachel Olsen

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." Romans 8:37 (NIV)

Beginning in my twenties, I wrestled each day with chronic pain and fatigue. The first few years of it, doctors had no idea why.

Then came the diagnosis: fibromyalgia.

I was told this condition was poorly understood, not very treatable, and also not reversible. In fact, they called it "degenerative," meaning it would worsen as I aged. In short, doctors said I had no chance to conquer this pain.

The pain worsened for a couple years and I couldn't image what my life would be like five, ten or fifty years down the road. I prayed for deliverance.