'Suffering tends to do two powerful things to us. First, it alienates us from the people nearest to us. It puts a big gulf between us. It makes us feel that there is no way anyone else could ever understand what we are going through. And if they could, they would be just as overwhelmed as we are and be looking for the quickest means of escape. We feel as if we have been swallowed up by suffering, and even though we are in the same room with others, it feels like we are more distant from one another than we have ever been.
Second, the shadow of suffering looms so large, it clouds any sense of God's presence. Suffering is like walking down into a windowless basement on a bright sunny day. The longer we stay in that subteerranean darkness, the harder it is to grasp that the sun is still shining. So suffering creates a double alienation. We not only experience the horizontal alienation from freinds and family, but we also experience a vertical alienation from God. This is where the promise of forever and its guarantee of God's presence in the here and now are so vital. When our souls are in the darkness, we need to keep telling ourselves again and again that the sun is still brightly shining. God is with us, even though the present darkness has blinded us from his nearness. We are not, nor will we ever be, alone. The God who has promised us forever has invaded our present so that nothing can get in the way of what he has stored away for us. He is near, and we are not alone.'
Paul David Tripp, Forever, p.116.
