Where is God?

(Don’t read this post if you don’t want honesty.)

When you go through a lot of bad things, you wonder when it will stop.

In the movie The Princess Bride, there is a scene where the princess says sadly about her true love, “He didn’t come.”

Sometimes I have felt like that with God. In my distress, He never showed up.

Or at least, that is how it seemed to me.

Sometimes I couldn’t even “feel” Him near, and my sorrows threatened to drown me.

Regardless, ALL God’s ways are perfect. How do I reconcile this? What have I learned?

Well, the last 10 years, many terrible, scary things have happened to me and my family. These include our youngest being born with spina bifida, our youngest being close to death twice (complications with spina bifida), our becoming homeless, and other Christians betraying us. Each one was pretty awful, but all together, they have been overwhelming.

I stopped counting major events at 15.

Yeah, that’s a lot of scary things in only 10 years.

NONE of these events were precipitated by sin on our part. I am not saying we are perfect; that is not what I mean. But no events came directly because of our sin or rebellion against God; none of them came at a time when we were walking away from God. It is not the same as getting drunk and landing in jail. Therefore, these events would be termed “innocent suffering.”

In fact, some of the terrible things happened because we chose to do what is right. (This would be termed persecution. As Christians, we expected persecution. We just didn’t expect it to come from other Christians.)

So, what have I learned?

1. Trust GOD. Do not trust God “for” something specific, unless He gives you direction to do so. The healings that I witnessed in our children were following specific direction and confirmation from God to pray for those. Another time, God just bestowed healing on me. (See this post: Amazing True Story ) But otherwise, I have learned that it is best by far to echo Jesus’ prayer, asking God for things but ending with: “Yet not my will but Yours be done.” God honors this type of humble, trusting prayer.
2. Life may be as scary as a raging sea, but God never changes. Sometimes I have pictured myself curling up in Jesus’ arms as a little lamb.
3. It’s all worth it knowing I will someday be Home in heaven with God forever, due to the blood of Jesus paying for my sins. Whatever God asks me to walk through, I will walk through. I will never understand God, but I do understand that He is the epitome of Love.

Christa Upton       Black Hills Picture Books   Edgemont, SD   57735