The apostle Paul instructs us to “give thanks in all circumstances.” Can he be serious? All circumstances? Really?
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested and thrown into a Soviet, Gulag prison. Even though at the time he was a committed atheist, a loyal Marxist, and a captain in the Red Army, he had criticized Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, in a private letter to a friend—that was all it took. After his 8-year prison sentence ended, he wasn’t freed immediately, but instead sent into exile where he nearly died of untreated cancer.
Years later, his cancer in remission and released from exile, Solzhenitsyn would say this about the experience:
“Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.”
Giving thanks for our sufferings is not easy; and being grateful in the very moment of hardship can seem almost impossible. But if we consider not the difficulty itself, but what God is making of us through it, we might just find ourselves giving thanks in all circumstances, even while lying on the rotting prison straw.
Have a wonderful day.
