Hello hardship, my old friend

Pain and suffering are the gifts that keep on giving | Marvin Olasky

This has been a hard year, but James at the beginning of his epistle tells us to welcome hardship: "Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness."

Does it seem oxymoronish to have "joy" and "trials" in the same verse, and for the joy to be not half-joy but "all joy"? Maybe, but the Bible presents a counterintuitive notion: that people who suffer for other people are the most joyful in the world. And if that's true, in 2007 we should run out of our comfort zone as fast as we can and take on the huge risk of loving someone whom others consider unlovable, maybe for good reason.

Think of all the people, ranging from volunteer foster parents to volunteer soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, who this year willingly took on tasks that others shirked. The givers among us have been neither foolish nor merely altruistic. In my own experience, the most difficult and draining task I've had has also been the most spiritually productive.