One of the things motherhood teaches us is that love willingly suffers for the good of someone else. A mother stays awake all night with a sick child. A mother carries burdens nobody sees. A mother worries, prays, sacrifices, and keeps showing up. And many times, she does all of that without immediate reward. That is one of the reasons Peter’s words in this passage connect so deeply to real life. Because Peter is writing to believers who are suffering. Not because they did wrong. Not because they were foolish. Not because they failed. They were suffering because they followed Jesus. And Peter wants them to understand something that we desperately need to hear today: Suffering is not proof that God has abandoned you. Sometimes suffering is proof that God is refining you.