"God is Good"
I have been following the blog of an acquaintance of mine from high school for the last few months. She has a beautiful little girl close to Anna's age who was diagnosed last December with leukemia. The little one had been in remission, but today they found leukemia cells in her spinal fluid again.
Although I have never been particularly close to anyone in that family, my heart absolutely aches for them. When I heard the news about her illness initially--and when I heard about her relapsing again today--I felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach.
I've started reading The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith. I've been craving a good spiritual read--to stir me to move a little, to feed my faith. So far, I've enjoyed the book. It's easy to read while at the same time encouraging me to press beyond old thought systems and habits. The second chapter of the book is entitled "God is Good." In the chapter, the author reveals that he had a daughter who died at the age of two of a congenital disability. He talked about how he struggled to understand God's plan--struggled to see God's goodness in the midst of his heartache. People--broken beings that we are--said all kinds of unhelpful things during that time in his life, mostly out of the desire to comfort him. Many of the comments reflected a belief that his daughter's death was a punishment for some sort of sin; others alluded to the notion that his daughter was too precious for God to keep on this earth. Neither viewpoint was at all what he needed to hear let alone accurate.
Really, what the chapter boiled down to was that there really are no answers--no concrete explanations that satisfy our human hunger for a sense of control--for why devastating things happen to good people, etc. Yuck. I'm right there with the batch of people who want to be able to have a hand in their fate. I want to toe the line, smile at strangers, kiss my baby, say my prayers and rest assured that everything I hold dear is safe. The chapter did make sense to me, though. Although God's wisdom is beyond our understanding, there is immense comfort in knowing that there is peace and joy that transcend sorrow for those who seek Him. And just because I can't wrap my mind around His eternal perspective, it doesn't mean for a moment that anything is beyond His control nor does it mean that He isn't a good and loving God.
I'm well aware that this perspective is easy to reach when I'm sitting here in the comfort of my own bed with my healthy little girl sleeping soundly in the room across the hall. Although my heart aches for the family I spoke of at the beginning of this post, I won't pretend I know the depth of that soul-rocking grief--that hand-wringing sense of futility knowing that the outcome is all out of our hands.
I scooped my Anna up out of bed tonight and rocked her; it woke her (*sigh*), but she was more than willing to snuggle in and let me sing to her. We sang "Jesus Never Fails." Anna sang, too, and even though her version sounded more like "Chee-suh fai-o," it warmed my heart, and I'm fairly certain that God didn't mind her botched version of the song.
We prayed for that family and thanked God for our own, and those simple prayers have been playing loops in my head all night. I so want a sense of hope and peace to find its way to where it's needed tonight.
Although I have never been particularly close to anyone in that family, my heart absolutely aches for them. When I heard the news about her illness initially--and when I heard about her relapsing again today--I felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach.
I've started reading The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith. I've been craving a good spiritual read--to stir me to move a little, to feed my faith. So far, I've enjoyed the book. It's easy to read while at the same time encouraging me to press beyond old thought systems and habits. The second chapter of the book is entitled "God is Good." In the chapter, the author reveals that he had a daughter who died at the age of two of a congenital disability. He talked about how he struggled to understand God's plan--struggled to see God's goodness in the midst of his heartache. People--broken beings that we are--said all kinds of unhelpful things during that time in his life, mostly out of the desire to comfort him. Many of the comments reflected a belief that his daughter's death was a punishment for some sort of sin; others alluded to the notion that his daughter was too precious for God to keep on this earth. Neither viewpoint was at all what he needed to hear let alone accurate.
Really, what the chapter boiled down to was that there really are no answers--no concrete explanations that satisfy our human hunger for a sense of control--for why devastating things happen to good people, etc. Yuck. I'm right there with the batch of people who want to be able to have a hand in their fate. I want to toe the line, smile at strangers, kiss my baby, say my prayers and rest assured that everything I hold dear is safe. The chapter did make sense to me, though. Although God's wisdom is beyond our understanding, there is immense comfort in knowing that there is peace and joy that transcend sorrow for those who seek Him. And just because I can't wrap my mind around His eternal perspective, it doesn't mean for a moment that anything is beyond His control nor does it mean that He isn't a good and loving God.
I'm well aware that this perspective is easy to reach when I'm sitting here in the comfort of my own bed with my healthy little girl sleeping soundly in the room across the hall. Although my heart aches for the family I spoke of at the beginning of this post, I won't pretend I know the depth of that soul-rocking grief--that hand-wringing sense of futility knowing that the outcome is all out of our hands.
I scooped my Anna up out of bed tonight and rocked her; it woke her (*sigh*), but she was more than willing to snuggle in and let me sing to her. We sang "Jesus Never Fails." Anna sang, too, and even though her version sounded more like "Chee-suh fai-o," it warmed my heart, and I'm fairly certain that God didn't mind her botched version of the song.
We prayed for that family and thanked God for our own, and those simple prayers have been playing loops in my head all night. I so want a sense of hope and peace to find its way to where it's needed tonight.
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