Learning God's Ways Will Burn You.

This year has already brought with it many wonderful lessons. Most of them have been quite painful to bear, but all of them have been wonderful.

God is refining us through the fires of His love. Oh, it hurts; but only by the flames of His holiness can our impurities be revealed and then scraped away.

These trials have consisted of feeling embarrassed, and then being embarrassed of feeling embarrassed. Another trial that we faced just tonight brought us down on our faces before the Lord. We realized that our method of contraception was not fully contraceptive. We discovered this afternoon that the birth control pills we were given have an abortive phase (the third phase); which meant that a child (though only the size of a fertilized egg) would be discarded due to the way the pill made it impossible for the fertilized egg (the child) to implant in the uterine wall. We felt like murderers due to the possibility of having aborted a child. Yes, only God knows, but our carelessness might have caused a beautiful child of God to pass out of this world without the slightest chance. We wept together and prayed for wisdom as to what we should do now. We wait for God’s direction. We have peace in His timing. God’s sovereignty and righteousness comforts us.

We are learning that the snares of two people being made one are often tightly woven and quick to entangle the unsuspecting. God is teaching us to be suspecting, “walking carefully, for the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16).