Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. I'm Amy Boucher Pie, and I called our reading

strengthened through trials. The memories flooded back when I rustled through some envelopes and

glimpsed a sticker that said,

I've had an eye test. In my mind, I saw my four-year-old son proudly wearing the sticker after

enduring stinging eye drops. Because of weak eye muscles, he had to wear a patch for hours each

day over his strong eye, thereby forcing the weaker eye to develop.

He also needed surgery. He met these challenges one by one, looking to us as his parents

for comfort and depending on God with childlike faith. Through these challenges, he developed

resilience. People who endure trials and

suffering are often changed by the experience. But the Apostle Paul went further and said to glory

in our sufferings, because through them, we develop perseverance. With perseverance comes

character, and with character, hope. Paul certainly

knew trials, not only shipwrecks, but imprisonment for his faith. Yet in Romans chapter 5,

he wrote to the believers in Rome that hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has

been poured out into our hearts through

the Holy Spirit. The Apostle recognized that God's Spirit keeps our hope in Jesus alive when we

put our trust in Him. Whatever hardships you face, know that God will pour out His grace and

mercy on you. He loves you.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Romans chapter 5, verses 1 through 5.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus

Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God, not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,

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