If I can rejoice in the midst of suffering, then I stand at the threshold of a sacred mystery, that place where I, in my own frail flesh, “fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ… for the sake of His Body.” Only the soul saturated and drenched in the Spirit of the Living God, can rise in the midst of wreckage of loss and cry out with trembling lips, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord!” This is no mere endurance, no stoic stance, it is a sacred participation in the sorrow and the splendor of Christ. It is the fellowship of His suffering. A communion few will dare to enter, too costly for most, and yet it is the very ground where heaven bows down and kisses the wounded earth
When heaven collides with earth, then it enters into sorrow. How could it be otherwise? One is perfect, the other a ruin of its original. And we, we who have been born from above, have been invaded by that very heaven. It fills our bones. It saturates our hearts. And in that collision we begin to drink from the same bitter cup our Lord once drank. We are not spectators. We are not distant. We are His Body, and so we must enter into that same sorrow, that way of suffering, and there we must rejoice in the midst of it all. And the joy we share, as we tarry there, begins to tear down the kingdom of darkness.
Our joy is the indelible, supernatural fingerprint of heavens glory that lies within us. Our brokenness, shattered by a dying world, becomes the sacred fissures through which the glory of God bursts forth. And as that glory pours forth, it kisses the wounded earth, and it becomes a balm of Gilead. It is the fellowship of His suffering. It is the communion of the afflicted. It is the royal priesthood of the scarred and the sanctified. A holy nation, set apart, bearing upon our very bodies the marks of our King. Not in shame, but in triumph. Not in defeat, but in everlasting victory.
A Call To The Remnant 