And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
Notice the order in that sentence: suffering comes first, restoration comes after. Nobody skips the hard part. Whoever wrote those words wasn't selling a life with no pain in it — they were pointing to something that happens on the other side of it.
Maybe you're wary of anything that sounds like a promise, especially from religion. Fair enough. But look at what's actually being said here: not that God prevents the hard season, but that He doesn't leave you stuck in it. Restore, confirm, strengthen, establish — that's rebuilding language, the kind you'd use for something torn down and put back together sturdier than before.
You don't have to pretend your "little while" has been little. You just have to consider the possibility that it isn't the end of the story — that there's a God who specializes in what comes after the suffering, not just what comes before it.
If part of you wonders whether anything good can come after a season like yours, that's a question worth sitting with honestly.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.