I've seen it over and over again in my people.

They get the awful news of cancer, or a terrible phone call that someone has died or someone's

in the hospital and they rise amazingly to the days, those few days around that immediate

thrust of the awful news.

But then a week later, not as many people are calling anymore,

and two weeks later and three weeks later,

and then the battle was raging big time,

as to whether they could hold fast to their faith in the midst of suffering.

What John Piper describes here has been exactly right in my own experience.

Often the hardest part of suffering isn't the moment it hits, it's what happens after.

When the phone stops ringing and you're left with the silence.

I'm Dan Kroover.

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper helps us see how God meets us not just in the crisis,

but in the long, slow weeks, months, or years that follow.

This message was originally delivered at the Cove in Asheville, North

Carolina on July 15, 2000.

Cry of our hearts with regard to even the teaching of your word, that the sound of my voice

and the echo of my voice in our hearts would be

pleasing to you. And so keep me on track biblically, I pray, and keep us together in our

thinking and in our affections and establish us now more fully in your word that we might walk pleasing to you

and that people might see Christ and exalt Him.

...