Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Romans 5:3-4

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ.

1 Peter 4:12-13

Throughout the Bible, there are stories of people who suffered tremendously and undeservedly. Often when people suffered, Jesus looked upon them with compassion, healed them and told them that they had been healed because of their faith. But before the miracle came the suffering. If their lives had been devoid of suffering, they would never have experienced those miracles. Too many times disciples go through suffering in their lives and believe that God hates them, is angry with them or is indifferent toward them. Too often we miss the fact that the suffering is setting the stage for God’s miracles.

Jesus told the Pharisees in Luke 5:31 that “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick.” Suffering can come through circumstances like physical sickness, tragedies or spiritual warfare. Suffering, while unpleasant, can produce humility in ways that pleasant life circumstances rarely can. When we are suffering, it is easier to understand our limitations and mortality. Otherwise, we can depend on our own strengths and our own talents. It is in this humility that we come to a place to be healed. Without the suffering and without the sickness, it is possible to completely miss our need for God.

Genesis 41-50 tells how the Israelites migrated to Egypt while Joseph was second in command to Pharoah. Many years passed, and “Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.” (Exodus 1:8) This new king enslaved the Israelites, who remained in slavery for hundreds of years. “In all the [Israelites’] hard labor, the Egyptians treated them ruthlessly.” (Exodus 1:14) Through no sin or fault of their own, the Israelites lived in Egypt, multiplied and were enslaved. But because they suffered indescribably, God was able to perform the awesome miracles told throughout the book of Exodus. He sent the ten plagues on Egypt, discriminating between those who believed and those who did not. He separated the Red Sea, allowed His people to walk through on dry land and destroyed the Egyptian army. He led his people with a cloud by day and a pillar by night. He miraculously fed them manna and quail. None of these miracles would have been possible without the years the Israelites suffered in slavery. They cried out to God because they suffered, and this set the stage for His miracles.

The woman who bled for 12 years, whose story is told in Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, and Luke 8:43-48, also suffered tremendously. Bleeding for 12 years in modern times would be miserable enough, but bleeding for 12 years in the first century Israel would have made life nearly unlivable. Leviticus 15:19-31 explains that women were ceremonially unclean during their monthly periods. If a woman bled outside her normal cycle, like the woman here, she was unclean the whole time she bled. And she was unclean for seven days after she stopped bleeding. Anything she sat on or laid on was unclean. Anyone she touched was unclean. She not only lived a life of constant illness but also of constant isolation. The woman had spent all the money she had to get well, but she had only grown worse under the doctors’ care…for TWELVE YEARS.

Then came the day she saw Jesus. Keep in mind that she knew that when she touched Jesus, she would make Him unclean, but she was desperate enough to do it anyway. Because of her suffering and her faith, Jesus FELT her touch when he was being pressed on all sides. If she had not suffered and had not maintained her faith through it all, she would have felt like every other person crowding Jesus that day. It was because of her suffering that she got the attention of Jesus. In the desperation of our greatest suffering, do we reach out just to touch Jesus? Are we humble enough, like this woman, to realize that we cannot fix our problems through our own strength and that the only way to healing is through a miracle of God?

John 9 tells the story of a man who was blind from birth. Because he was born blind during the first century, he was condemned to be beggar. For his entire life, people told him that he was blind because of either his parents’ sin or his own sin. Even the disciples asked Jesus whose sin was the cause of the man’s suffering. However, Jesus said the man was blind “so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3). Few of us have lived our lives in suffering the way this man would have done. But because he suffered for all those years, Jesus was able to perform an incredible miracle in his life. When we are suffering, do we believe it could be so that the work of God might be displayed in our lives?  

The story of the greatest suffering that brought the greatest miracle is that of Jesus on the cross. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told His disciples “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Matthew 26:39). He suffered from hematidrosis, a condition brought on only by extreme stress. He then suffered the physical torture of the cross, but above all, He was separated from His father for the only time in all eternity because He took on Himself the sin of every person. God could not be with Him. Jesus had done nothing to deserve this suffering; in fact, He was the only sinless person ever to walk the earth. He chose to go to the cross and endure this because it was only through this suffering that salvation could be brought into the world. Without His suffering, there would have been no miracle of salvation.

The examples continue throughout the Bible of people whose suffering set the stage for miracles: the lepers (Matthew 8:1-4, Mark 7:40-42; Luke 5:12-14; Luke 17:11-14), the blind (Matthew:9:27-30; Matthew 20:29-34; Mark 8:22-26; Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-43), the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-28, Mark 6:24-30), the demon-possessed (Matthew 17:14-18, Mark 5:1-20, Mark 9:14-27; Luke 8:26-33; Luke 9:37-42), the sick (Mark 1:29-34, Luke 4:40-41), the paralyzed (Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-25; John 5:1-9), the deaf and mute (Mark 7:31-35), and the crippled woman (Luke 13:10-13. None of these people would have experienced the miracle of Jesus’ healing without suffering first. It was through their suffering that they understood their need for a miracle.

I respond to suffering the same way that many people do – with sadness, anger and a desire only for it to end. In 2013 moved to Denver in order to help start the church there, and I left everything I had to do it. My first several months here were incredibly difficult. I could not adjust to the altitude, so I had altitude sickness for four months – nausea, headaches and fatigue every day. We found out my father-in-law had leukemia. He almost died, and we had no money for my husband to travel to see him. I come from a blended family, and one of my sister’s father was shot in a gang-related killing and another sister’s biological mother committed suicide. I could not find a job for months, and we had so little money that one of the families in the church bought our groceries with their food stamps. I looked at the prices of tickets back to DC every day for months. I wanted to go back to the exciting, illness-free life I had had before moving.

This time of suffering and humbling was exactly what I needed to be effective in the Kingdom of God. Before I moved to Denver, I relied so heavily on my own strengths, talents and accolades that I could not be effective. It was only through my suffering that I was able to see incredible miracles. In my marriage, I learned to depend wholeheartedly on my husband. Had we stayed in DC or had I been healthy and able to get a job immediately, it’s likely I would have continued in the belief that I didn’t need anyone else. That attitude, which was deeply rooted in my heart at the time, would have been hurtful to Afa and damaging to our marriage. The suffering allowed us to forge unity in our marriage from the very beginning. I had the opportunity to study the Bible with Christina Bujaci, who became my best friend in the city, my roommate, and an awesome disciple. She continues to be a pillar in my life. I saw the church grow from an initial mission team to a now-thriving church.

Each person we baptized, each ministry we built in Denver  has story that I wish I could share here because each of them is a miracle unto themselves, a miracle I would have missed if I had not had my own period of suffering. I had to realize my need for God before He could work a miracle through me.

My God is a God of miracles. He looks at every one of His children through the eyes of love and compassion. He does not want a single one of us to suffer, but He has greater plans if we are willing to endure the suffering without losing our faith. When we suffer, maintaining our faith through it all, God is setting the stage for our miracles!