Life is tough. However, we can (and most often do) learn from our difficulties. I think its ironic that failure, hardship and pain can result in good things. We all know that when we learned to walk we often fell as we learned. In our life as a Christian, we sin, are corrected (by either God or our brethren) and hopefully NEVER repeat our error. In the process, we hurt and our fellow Christians do as well.
In the book of 1st Corinthians, someone committed a sin with a family member. Paul rebuked the sin and the person who committed the action repented. There was pain, but the end result was that the sinner was restored. In Paul’s second letter to Corinth, Paul says of the matter…
2 Corinthians 2 ( World English Bible )
1 But I determined this for myself, that I would not come to you again in sorrow.
2 For if I make you sorry, then who will make me glad but he who is made sorry by me?
3 And I wrote this very thing to you, so that, when I came, I wouldn’t have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; having confidence in you all, that my joy would be shared by all of you.
4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be made sorry, but that you might know the love that I have so abundantly for you.
5 But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow, not to me, but in part (that I not press too heavily) to you all.
6 Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the many;
7 so that on the contrary you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his excessive sorrow.
8 Therefore I beg you to confirm your love toward him.
2 Corinthians 7 ( WEB )
8 For though I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I see that my letter made you sorry, though just for a while.
9 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you were made sorry to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly way, that you might suffer loss by us in nothing.
10 For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, which brings no regret. But the sorrow of the world works death.
11 For behold, this same thing, that you were made sorry in a godly way, what earnest care it worked in you. Yes, what defense, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, and vengeance! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be pure in the matter.
12 So although I wrote to you, I wrote not for his cause that did the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered the wrong, but that your earnest care for us might be revealed in you in the sight of God.
Through all this difficulty with the church at Corinth good things came of it. The church exercised discipline towards a wayward member and that person changed his ways (repented). And later the church showed love and forgiveness towards the wayward one.
Good came from all this and not just for them, but for us as well, for there is a lesson here for both Christians and churches everywhere. Confront sin and once the offender has repented show love towards him or her.
I know that all these things are hard to do, but they are worth doing. Like I said at the beginning: Life is tough.