I have so many friends who are going through such difficult times at this moment. 

I'm gonna quote Beth Moore when she says:

"If it's not one thing, it's two. If it's not two things, it's ten."

There's a guy named James in the Bible, who was the half brother of Jesus, and he wrote a letter encouraging fellow Christians to take joy in their trials, difficulties, and hard things they go through. This is specifically what he says:

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." - James 1:2-4

In other words, it makes you stronger. Currently, I'm in my fifth semester of Greek at Dallas Theological Seminary and one thing that I really enjoy doing is looking at the Greek words to deepen my understanding of the translations. When you get down to the nitty gritty of our faith, there are multiple places in the Bible that remind us that faith is a gift from God. Faith is a gift that God gives us, it's not something that we conjure up on our own.

So when we go through tough times and that tests our faith, we have to ask what God is up to here. When we are in these periods that are just so difficult, God's not sitting there in a referee shirt with a whistle around his neck watching to grade our faith. God's not allowing this so that we can prove to him that we're faithful. God allows this so that He can prove to us that He's faithful. The more difficulties we go through, the more we see God's provision and His faithfulness at work in our lives, what ends up happening is that we get stronger and grow in endurance. 

But what is endurance? It's the ability to keep going, to not quit. So if you're going through something really difficult right now, I want you to take a deep breath and ask the Lord to show you that He's faithful.