Encouragement in Trials

I am in a prayer group with three other women. We try to get together at least once a week, though that doesn't always work out. When it doesn't we pray over the phone.
Over the years, as each of us have faced extremely difficult circumstances and we have prayed steadfastly and been each others Aaron and Hur, the Lord has knit our souls togther.
However, it is by the "washing of the water of the Word" that our spirits are nourished--even more so than through prayer--because this is what God Himself declared would nourish us.
Prayer is one of the most powerful forces in the universe and corporate prayer is that power multiplied. But it is the Word of God that changes, teaches and instructs us.
And so for anyone who is facing any kind of difficulty I would encourage you to not only lift your concerns before the Lord in prayer, but to cling to His Word and let it revive you.
Here are four of my favorite, life-giving Scriptures when facing the difficulties and trials of life:

"Consider it all joy, my brethern, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." James 1:2-4

"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things wich are not seen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4: 16-18

"For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Chirst, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him." Romans 8: 15-17

"Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him. So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain wateing the earth." Hosea 6:1-3

As faithful servants of God Most High, the King and Creator of all the universe, when we encounter the difficulties and trials of life, let us soak in His Word, bask in His goodness, trust in His gentle- ness, believe in His character, and cling to His promises like a drowning man clinging to a life perserver in the tossing sea.