Hannah More was from England in the 18th and 19th century. She was a huge star with tons of money and connected with all the right people. But she became friends with John Newton (Amazing Grace, former slave trader). She became a follower of Jesus. Her desire for fame no longer fit her spiritual life. She retired with severe asthma and bronchitis. Listen to what she wrote about suffering:
"Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired and in which great characters are formed. It s like a spiritual gymnasium in which the disciples of Christ are trained in robust exercise, hardy exertion and severe conflict. We do not hear of military heroes in peacetime, nor of the most distinguished saints in the quiet and unmolested periods of church history."
She believed that adversity was ACTUALLY a sign of God’s love and care. And through PRAYER we begin to understand that. She wrote this: “If a surgeon were to put his scalpel into the hand of the patient, how tenderly he would treat himself. The exam would be skin deep. The incision would be slight! The patient would escape the pain, but the wound might prove fatal. The surgeon therefore wisely uses the instrument himself. He goes deep perhaps, but not deeper than the case demands. The pain may be acute, but the life is persevered...God graciously does this for us Himself because otherwise He knows it would never be done.”
- Part of a lesson by Jeff McMillion
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