Our family knows that this is just a storm that will pass. We are still praising our God and giving him all of the credit for what he has done in Zac already! We never dreamed when starting this website that so many would be checking it and that this "storm" would last this long. Thank you ALL for your thoughts, prayers and love.
Since God promises us trials, and he promises to help us in and through our trials, what are they for? Why does God allow any evil? We do not fully know, but we know that God does allow evil, and Jesus himself was willing to endure it, and he is still enduring it patiently. The Scriptures tell us about a few benefits of trials:
"Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope" (Rom. 5:3-4). "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" (Heb. 12:11).
"You may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Pet. 1:6-7).
In short, we learn things from suffering that we cannot learn from studying our Bibles. Suffering shapes our character in a way that words cannot fully describe. Even Jesus learned from his sufferings, and we are also called to take up a cross and suffer with him.
Thank you, Lord, for these trials that we are facing. Though we do not fully understand them we know you are shaping us into the men and women you desire us to be.