God's love in tough times

Romans 5:3-5 ...we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

We can look at hard times a completely different way than the world does. They may have endurance for a time and hard times may shape their character. But we have hope. Hope that points to a God that is a rescuer, a redeemer. This scripture says hope does not disappoint or put us to shame because in our hope God's love is poured out on our hearts through the Holy Spirit who God gave us.

I can honestly say I knew the hard times would teach me valuable things about God but I had never seen the last part of that verse about God pouring His love into my heart. What was interesting was I had been driving around town and I just couldn't shake this feeling of love. Ya know the kind when you first fall in love with your spouse and you just walk around knowing someone loves you? It's the silly smile, skip in your step kind of feeling.

When we were going through some pretty rough times I started having this "loved" feeling. I was so confused by it because this feeling didn't match my circumstances at all. I asked a friend of ours and he mentioned this verse. I had known the first part of the scripture of what hard times would develop in me but had never seen the part about God pouring out His love - which exactly matched the feeling I had been having. God was showing me in the midst of my hard times how much He loved me. Look for it... He wants to show you too.