Renee Masterson Young’s Reviews > The Scars That Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering > Status Update

“I do not wish a pain-free life on anyone I love. A pain-free life is not a blessing. A pain-free life yields little of lasting value. The rain God sends does indeed demonstrate his faithfulness” (123).

“God’s glory is on display for the angels and demons when people demonstrate that their hearts are satisfied in God alone rather than in his gifts” (132).

“This path of suffering, of heartache, of loneliness takes me directly to my Savior. Which is the only path worth taking” (115).

Vaneetha will be added among the list of saints I am thankful for.

“I have learned from saints, living and dead, that I need to thank God for my deepest suffering. Believers who have thanked God for blindness, for prison, and for quadriplegia. Unthinkable suffering, which most would consider unbearable, these Christ-followers have seen as God’s gifts. Gifts wrapped in black, but gifts nonetheless” (104).

“…perhaps in heaven, I will thank God most for my unfulfilled longings because they did the deepest, most lasting work in my soul” (89).

This book is so comforting, so helpful to my heart.

“Don’t look back on the past & assume it was perfect. It wasn’t. Mine wasn’t perfect, either. This new road that I am on, bumpy and twisty as it may be, is the path God has chosen for me. It is the best road. The only one worth taking. If I keep looking back on the old way longingly, focusing on what I’ve lost rather than on what I have, I will miss the rewards of the new path. I need to open my eyes” 74

“It seems counterintuitive that the high points of my relationship with God would be connected to the low points in my circumstances. But the ways of God are often not what I expect. Perhaps only when I am truly desperate can I hear the Lord’s still, small voice. Perhaps suffering and sorrow are God’s invitation to know him better” (57).

Risner has written a truly comforting & relatable book here. Thankful!

“I can show the surpassing worth of Christ when I suffer well—when I joyfully accept circumstances that are less than perfect, when I give up my need to control. Willingly relinquishing my need to have things exactly as I want is an act of worship” (38).

This book is challenging me more than I anticipated. I thought this’d be a memoir of lessons from Risner, but lo! it is more! It’s shaping my own heart.

The world is “focusing on the cause of this man’s disability while Jesus spoke to the purpose behind it” (29). Our suffering is always significant, always shaping us. Suffering, for the believer, is not “a punishment or even random misfortune. It had been planned all along by God” (30).

I will praise God in my weakness. I thank God for my pain as it brings me to his feet when I’m so prone to run away.

“Suffering is a strange, dark companion; but a companion, nonetheless. It’s an unwelcome visitor; but still, a visitor. Affliction is a bruising of a blessing; but it is a blessing from the hand of God. It is how God meets us in our suffering.”
-Joni (in foreword)