Today my friend Fernando and I spent some time looking at the Scriptures together. I was sitting in a rickety wooden chair and he was sitting much lower on a handmade stool. The bugs gathered around us on his front porch as we read:

“…we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5

I love this passage and what it holds for any of us as we experience trials, but what struck me today is the breadth of this verse.

I am a born and bred suburbanite raised in a region that routinely has at least two counties in the top 5 richest in the United States. Fernando’s surroundings growing up were not nearly as auspicious, growing up in a cornstalk house a few miles from where he now lives. We both bring our own version of “sufferings” to this verse. In many ways his are much more profound than any I have experienced in my comfortable upbringing.

The beauty of this Scripture is that it does not matter where we begin, the ending is the same: Hope that does not put us to shame because of the Holy Spirit.

Can I get an “Amen!”?