In today’s gospel reading the disciples were faced with a challenge—there were hundreds of hungry people, but not enough food or money to buy food. We, too, are faced with challenges in life, although likely not the challenge the disciples faced of how to feed thousands of people!

One challenge we may face in life is the aging of our bodies, our bodies changing and maybe not always working the way they used to.

I recall around the time I turned 30 noticing the first wrinkle on my forehead. I thought, “Oh my gosh, I’m old!” I started buying anti-wrinkle creams and used them faithfully. Actually throughout my 30s I felt old, even though looking back now, I see that I wasn’t. But people in their 20s truly are young, so that perhaps being in the 30s is a transition time.

I had an interesting experience last year when I was working for a home health care company, taking care of an elderly client in her home. We would go out for coffee a few times a week with some of her friends, ladies in their 70s and 80s. One day I quietly observed the ladies while they were visiting, sharing about their lives, past and present, and I noticed how content they seemed in their lives. I thought how wonderful it must be to feel contented at any stage in life.

Another challenge we face in life are health issues, the body gradually breaking down.

A few years ago I had pain in my side and had to have my gallbladder removed. I was somewhat surprised at how I felt about losing part of body. I didn’t like having part of body gone. It just didn’t seem right.

I know you too have faced similar things, perhaps knee replacement, hip replacement, or even loss of your gallbladder or appendix or a limb. And some of you have faced loss of your vision or hearing.

When I was a child, my little sister and I were close and were having a discussion one day about which we thought would be worse to lose, vision or hearing. Although I don’t recall her response, for me I thought it would be worse to lose vision. I thought if I lost my hearing, I probably could still read lips. But I couldn’t imagine all that I would miss out on if I couldn’t see.

Unfortunately we likely won’t have a choice as to what health issues we may face in life.

Another challenge we may face in life is the loss of loved ones, perhaps a spouse, a child, other family members, friends.

I recall several years ago saying to my Mom how neat I thought it was seeing how close her parents, my grandparents, were. I told her I thought they seemed to have the ideal marriage. My Mom said to me, “It wasn’t always that way!” I have read that if a couple can survive the child rearing years, they usually come out having a closer relationship. When my grandparents were in their 70s, my Grandma was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live. She wound up holding out another three years. My Mom thinks she didn’t want to leave Grandpa alone because she had always done nearly everything for him and worried about how he would go on without her. After she passed away, my Grandpa didn’t do very well, even though my Mom tried to help him out with things all she could. But he lost his zest for life and passed away less than two years after Grandma did. I guess perhaps one drawback to a close marriage!

And the loss of a child--as a Mom myself, I cannot even fathom how great of a challenge it would be to cope with the loss of a child. I’ve heard it said that it just isn’t the right order of things.

Now that my parents are getting older, Dad 73 and Mom 69, they have lost several friends the past few years. And I know you develop close friendships here at Bethesda and I’ve seen how hard it is to lose someone special.

These and other challenges in life I would consider faith building opportunities.

I think sometimes in the early days of our Christian journey, we may have things pretty easy, or at least for me it seemed that way. I would pray and soon after I would see God’s answers. But that is what I would call an easy faith, and the Bible tells us that faith that is not tested, is not true faith. It’s easy to be a Christian when life is going along pretty well, but it’s much harder when we go through life’s challenges.

One of my faith challenging times was a time when not only did God not give me what I prayed for, but instead He gave me the opposite of what I had prayed for.

Several years ago my former husband decided he wanted to change careers to retail management. He would train for six months, then we didn’t know where we would be relocated to. I prayed often and fervently not to be relocated, but at the very least not relocated out of Missouri, where I had lived the first 30 years of my life and where nearly all my family live. Well, after a few months, we were told that we would be relocated to Duluth, Minnesota. Honestly I was angry with God--how could He answer my prayer so much differently than how I had prayed? But sometimes God knows what is better for us. And that’s the tough part, coming to trust that that is true.

Duluth is 14 hours away from my parents. Before we had visited my parents once a month. Now we went six months without seeing my family. During that time I thought a lot about my Dad, as I had a lot of anger towards him. I came to a point of understanding why he is the way he is, and that helped me to come to a point of forgiveness. Sometimes when we’re too close to a situation, we cannot see it clearly. I think God knew I needed that time away to work through things and to come to a point of forgiveness. Looking back, I can now see through that experience how God was working all things for my ultimate good, as the scripture in Romans assures us.

A few years ago while going through a challenging time in my life, I ran across a very meaningful scripture. It’s Psalm 30:5, which says, “Weeping may go on all night, but in the morning there is joy.” What a wonderful message, that even though we may go through challenge in our lives, periods of darkness, that ultimately morning will come and life will get better. Sometimes we wait expectantly for our morning to come.

As Christians, we are especially blessed to have the fruit of the Spirit of Hope. Hope gives us a reason to go on when life is challenging, having faith that God has the power to change everything. When like the disciples in today’s gospel reading, we take our challenges to God in prayer, He will intervene on our behalf; as we have faith to trust that whatever God’s answers are to our prayers, that He is working all things toward our ultimate good.

Indeed, “weeping may go on all night, but in the morning there is joy.”

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