READ: ROMANS 8:28-39; 2 CORINTHIANS 1:3-7; REVELATION 21:1-5

"No season is wasted.” I smiled when I read those words. My friend had handed the sticker to me, sensing that I needed it. She was right. Not only the words, but the picture beside them: two yellow flowers.

At a particularly painful moment in my life last year, this friend had noticed yellow flowers growing in front of my old house, and she told me she felt like those flowers were God saying that He was making something new in my life.

When I pointed out the flowers on the sticker, my friend gasped. “I hadn’t even noticed that!” I smiled again and shook my head. Of course you did that, God.

“No season is wasted.” That statement brought a bit of healing to my heart. The past year had been one of the hardest of my life, and all the well-meaning pleasantries were falling flat. “It will get better!” Are you sure about that? “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it’s not the end!” Well, most of Jesus’s apostles were gruesomely martyred, so I don’t think everything turned out “all right” in their earthly lives. “Something good will come out of this that will make it all worth it!” While some good things have come out of this, I’m not convinced the math adds up.

But the phrase on my friend’s sticker hit home. It offered no empty promise of things getting better. It didn’t try to make my situation good. It didn’t pressure me to somehow feel happy about everything. Instead, it simply pointed out that this situation isn’t wasted. That God can take this painful mess and, somehow, use it for His purposes. I don’t know exactly what those purposes are or how my situation can be used in them, but He does. He died and rose again because He loves me, and while I may never see the good He is doing in this situation during my lifetime, I know that He is at work. And honestly, that’s enough. • Taylor Eising

• When you’ve gone through difficult times, what truths from God’s Word has He used to bring you comfort? Consider spending some time thanking Him for these.

• Who are trusted Christians in your life who can point you to Jesus when you’re struggling?

For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:5 (NIV)