February 14, 2007, Wednesday

It’s the Valentine’s day. The day usually with a lot of love and happiness, until last year…

Last year’s Valentine’s day evening, four of Lydia’s teacher brought a lot of gifts from teachers and classmates to Children’s Hospital to Lydia. It was a lot of love and a lot of gifts, balloons and get well cards.

And the same time in the evening, mom and dad were having meeting with the doctors. At the end, we realized that Lydia needed to go through many radiation and chemo therapies.

Back exactly one year ago, we thought that day was a tough day, without knowing the really tough days were still ahead of us. And toughest of all, that Lydia would leave us forever six months later.

What do we know about this life, very little. Everything is in God’s hand.

Now we are in deep sorrow all the time. Bereaved, and heart torn apart…

“…sorrowful, yet always rejoicing…” 2 Corinthians 6:10

Isn’t this contradicting? What actually did Paul mean?

Until I read Hebrews 10:36,

“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”

Now I realize that joy in sorrow means that while we are suffering, grieving, and mourning, we still have hope in the Lord and that would bring us joy.

The deeper the suffering goes, the more joy we can enjoy God’s promise, and we will further long for spending eternity with Him…

Without severe suffering, how can we truly appreciate God’s promise of heavenly home (at most, only in head, not in heart), how can we truly say (be honest) that we are aliens and strangers on earth (Hebrew 11:13).

Wow, thank God that in this Valentine’s day, God gave me JOY when I am in deep sorrow.