count it all joy

Count it All Joy
“Count it all joy my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of faith produces steadfastness. “ James 1:2-3
Learning to count it all joy is not an easy process, but it is totally worth it.
I have been going through some trials in in my life this last year. Ask any of the teens in my church and they will tell you that I always have something to pray for.
Through these various trials I have learned a lot, and am now thankful for each one of them even though I wasn’t at the time I was going through them.
My mom and dad are divorced. I live with my mom, and visit my dad every other weekend. He used to make sure he got time with me. This last May he stopped calling me, and did not come to see me. I tried to call him a few times at the beginning but when he never called me back, I to wondered what was going on. I began to feel like I had no dad. He finally called me in September, and I have seen him a few times since then, and calls me about twice a week.
Through the trial I had with my dad I learned that God is my heavenly Father, and will never leave or forsake me, even though my earthly father might.
This last spring we began having another trial with my sister Gwenyth. She has a different dad, whom my mom is now divorced from, and she frequently visited him. Gwenyth began telling us about some very serious inappropriate things that one of her siblings there had been doing to her. We had to go to court over the matter, and though most things are settled, we are still dealing with some of that now.
Through this trial I’ve learned I must trust God in every situation, even when I don’t understand why it’s happening ( I am still working on this.)
Finally, last year I found out that I had asthma. It never really bothered me until I was at camp this last summer and had an asthma attack. Ever since then it’s been getting worse, to the point were I was having an asthma apace once a week. Every day it was hard to breath. I now have a new medicine, which is working better, and it is somewhat easier to breath on a day-to-day basis.
Through the trial of my asthma, I have learned that every breath I take is a gift of God and I do not deserve it. So often, I take breathing for granted. But when I can’t breath well, I have to think about every breath. Now if I have a day when it’s easy to breath I thank God because I realize I don’t deserve any of the breaths I take, and for them to be easy to take is even more of a gift.
Through every trial, through prayer, and through learning to trust Him,
the Lord brought me closer to Him. Small trials I go through every day now make me ask myself what I can learn from them. Through all the trials on earth, most of all I have learned to long for heaven even more when there will be no trials or pains.
“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, as was necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuine of your faith- more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire- may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:6-7