Towards the end of my sentence I was reading Billy Graham’s book, “The Secret of Happiness.” He told the story of a friend who lost his job, a fortune, his wife, and his home. But he tenaciously held to his faith, the only thing he had left. One day he stopped to watch some men doing stonework on a huge church. One of them was chiseling a triangular piece of stone.

“What are you going to do with that?” Asked his friend.

The workman said, “See that little opening away up there near the spire Well, I’m shaping this down here so it will fit in up there.”

Tears filled his friend’s eyes as he walked away, for it seemed that God had spoken through the workman to explain the ordeal through which he was passing. “I’m shaping you down here so you you’ll fit in up there.”

After you have “suffered a while, make you perfect… settle you,” echoed the Words of the Bible.

Reading this story, I thought maybe that is what God had been (and is) doing in my life. Shaping me down here so I will fit in up there.

Are you struggling? Look up! Maybe, God is using your struggles to shape you down here, so you will fit in up there.

• look up