A Calming Balm Over You

I'm going through a week of personal testing so I'm going to dive into a common question.

When things happen in our life that are tragic or difficult, our usual cry is "why?".  The loss of a job; the break in one's health, the death of a friend or loved one; the list is endless.  Somehow we have the idea that this world owes us something; our life should be free from difficulty, pain and hurt.... but it isn't.  When it isn't, we start laying blame; if we can't put it on someone or on the anonymous government, we blame God.  "How could God allow this to happen?"  "How can a loving God let me/her/him suffer?"  


We were married only for about 6 months when my wife miscarried a beautiful child-to-be.  There were tears and grief and there still is even 30 years later.  Within the year, we would experience another miscarriage; our hopes dashed, but two years later, God blessed us with twin girls.  Even in all of our blessing as my wife was in the hospital with two 6-week premature infants, my father, who had experienced a major stroke a week before their birth, fought for his life.

My dad, 1944

Blessings continued as all of them came home from the hospital and my dad lived four more years, loving his grand-daughters.  My dad died in 1986 and I experienced death again when my sister, Gloria, died; she was ten years older than me and yet, we were very close.  She made me smile and the room lit up when she entered. She, like so many others, was a victim of cancer in 1998.  I felt loss and sadness, but not the question "why".  

I realized that my dad had looked at death many times over in the South Pacific during WWII.  During one surge, the fighting was fierce and at the end, he and two other soldiers were the only ones alive out of his entire company.   He came home, had a family, including grandchildren, and accomplished many things in his life.  My sister, too, although dying young, had a family, friends, and accomplishments.  It is natural for us to feel sorrow at these times, so if you are going through a loss, let it out.  These experiences will either draw us  to God, or they will cause bitterness to separate us from Him.  But we must understand that we are created beings and God reminds us in this way:

""For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways ," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."" Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

I find when I'm faced with the difficulties that come and they will continue to come, I draw closer in my personal relationship with God and catch a glimpse of the other kingdom that I am in.  I'm sure some will say, "just wait until xxxxxxxxxxxxxx."  Fair enough; I can't know how I will respond to every situation, but my experience shows me how I responded in the past.  


The Apostle Paul had a "thorn in his flesh"; what that was we are not exactly sure, but it was something that he found difficult to deal with.  This is what he wrote with the Spirit of God's inspiration:
" Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness ." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."  2 Corinthians 12:8-10 NIV

When you are saddled with difficulties too heavy to bear, please think of this specific testimony in the Word of God; it will bring a calming balm over you and an understanding that we live in a fallen world that is corrupt and difficult.  But there is a way that is right and changes sadness to gladness.