Madison Street United Methodist Church

 
There’s an old story about Mark Twain concerning the time he and his friend, writer William Dean Howells, were leaving church one Sunday, and suddenly it began to pour down rain.  Howells looked up at the clouds and said, “Do you think it will stop?” And Mark Twain replied, “It always has.”
 
Maybe we have asked that question in another way in response to some of the storms of life that so often touch our lives.  “Will it ever stop? Will the pain ever go away? Will my life ever get back to normal? Will I ever experience happiness and joy again? Will life ever be the same?”
 
Years ago when I was just starting out in ministry a young couple I knew went through the terrible pain and disappointment of divorce. I remember one particular counseling session the husband who was experiencing feelings of betrayal, loneliness, failure, rejection and hurt looked at me with tears in his eyes and asked, “Cliff, will the hurt ever go away? Will I ever feel like living again?”
 
There are times for all of us during the storms of life when we wonder, “Will it ever stop?” Perhaps it would be helpful during those times for us to remember what might be called the “positive past”—those times in our past in the midst of hurt and sorrow so great we thought it would never end that God, in only the way God can, gave us a strength beyond our own to see us through. And just as God strengthened us in the past, God will be with us and give us the strength to see us through again and again.
 
And one day the rain will cease, the sun will come up again, and we will be able to begin again.
 
In Christ,
 
Cliff C. Wright, Jr.