he watched it one afternoon and hours later, as i put him to bed, we had the following conversation:
"mom- we don't have a lot of tornadoes here."
-"no, buddy, we don't"
"but they do in texas."
-"yeah. they have a few more tornadoes in texas"
(pause)
"mom- God protects us, but people still die."
(my face falls)
-"yeah. that's true. God protects us, but sometimes people still die. and we have to trust God to make the right decision about where we are. sometimes He decides to bring people to heaven with them. and sometimes He decides to keep them here on earth."
(his face lifts- as though he'd forgotten about heaven and all the ways God cares for us)
sidebar: you know i've been working on my study about faith- about believing God for all He says He is and all He says i am. and that day's study was directly speaking about this, which i'm sure i'll come back and talk more about. but the gist was, what happens when you believe God can do something, like protect you, and He doesn't do it? what happens to faith? this is a question i have struggled with. and it was God's kindness that this question was one i had tearfully brought to Him already that day.
- "buddy, do you remember a couple of months ago, daddy and i talking to you about our friend Dan?
"yeah"
- "he was sick and daddy and i prayed and prayed that he would be healed so that he could stay here with us, but God wanted Dan to be in heaven with Him. and i still have to talk to God about that sometimes because i feel sad that Dan isn't here anymore. i need His help remembering to trust that He makes good choices and good decisions."
"oh, yeah. okay."
and that was the end of it. he was ready to go to sleep.
leave it to this boy to remind me of the truth. trusting in His decisions- the reality of His constant hand- He truly has it all.
2 comments:
I struggled a lot with the concept of trust. Just trust God, people would say, and usually they said it as if He would take care of everything and you would be well-cared for and happy. And I couldn't believe it, because all around the world His people were beaten and starving and hurting. So what was I supposed to be trusting anyway? There was a series of events that strung together brought this question into absolute clarity, but the bottom line was that we trust Him to do His will and that it is good. And in order to reconcile that with the pain that we experience, we have to ask ourselves what we want more, His way and His glory, or our own way. Because His plans are for His kingdom and our eternal good, but in no way guarantees our temporal comfort. This certainly doesn't make sense of every anguish that we will experience or encounter, but it gave me a much better starting point.
A timely post as I'm here in the home of my friends, with a set of parents that just lost their 2nd and last son. And a wife, who lost her husband. And a little boy who lost his dad this week.
And we're speaking these truths over and over here.
It's our mantra.
We DO have a kind, loving father. We do.
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