His Grace Abounds

This week God has given me a new awareness of just how awful this world is and how there is no hope without Christ. For the first time in my life, I can see just how much devastation and heartache comes from living in this fallen world. While it has always been there, my little bubble has been relatively untouched until this past year and my heart has never been grieved as much as it has been this week. There has been too much loss and too much heartbreak. How can any good come from this?

How can good come from sickness and death? How can good come from families being torn apart and friendships lost? How can good come from people, who claim Christ, hatefully turning on one another? Where is the good in any of it?

Romans 8:28 tells us,

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

and Ecclesiastes 3:11 says,

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.

But what purpose can there be in such loss? I have learned that in life there are questions that our finite minds can not answer. They are called God-questions. They are questions that we may never have the answer to because He, in His infinite wisdom and knowledge has been gracious enough to exclude us from knowing all of His work. He has given us a heart for eternity and asks that we trust Him. While this doesn't diminish the pain, it gives use hope. It reminds us the promise found in Jeremiah 29:11,

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Most of last year and the beginning of this year have been a season of deep waters for me. While we have had wonderful things happen in our family, I've also seen lives turned upside down, families torn apart, children lost, and friendships destroyed. I've seen the enemy take hold of peoples' lives and turn them against anyone who would point them to the Lord. I've walked dark roads alongside my dearest friends. I have waded through my own waters of doubt, confusion, and despair. But God! Praise Jesus I have seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13) God has shown himself faithful through it all. There hasn't been a single moment when God left. He has been with me through it all and He has shown His goodness through even the darkest times.

This time last year, my dear friend grieved the loss of child she never even got to hold. I cried with her as we grieved the loss of someone neither of us would ever know on this side of heaven. She never even got to tell me she was pregnant until it was too late. Later in the year, her family endured struggles that neither of us could have ever imagined and yet Her faith and trust in the Lord saw her through. Her faith through this loss has been a testimony to me of God's amazing grace. How can He use life's greatest trials and hardships, the result of living in a fallen world, for His glory and our good? Because He is God!

A few months later, our whole world was rocked as our church went through a devastating split. With all of the obstacles that come with a church split, it was very difficult to see God in anything. My group of peers that I held so dear were practically gone. The spirit of unforgiveness knocking on my heart door constantly as the enemy tried to tear down as much as he could on his way out. And Yet, He abounds. When the carnage of sin is all around us, His grace only increases. I have seen and known this grace over the past year. As friends have experienced loss and walked through deep valleys and rough storms, God has shown Himself faithful and been glorified through all. In the aftermath of devastation, I have seen relationships beginning again that I thought were lost forever. I have seen God raise beauty from ashes and create new life. I have seen how God uses all things to work for our good and His glory.

John 16:33: "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."

This week, a friend, someone I love, lost her baby. Her precious little girl was only a month younger than my twins. I have been sick with heartache since I heard the news and have questioned God's purpose in this tragedy. Why? Why her? Why did she have to be taken? Why so soon? The most difficult part for me to accept is that I will never know the answers to these questions, because they are God-questions. But, I have hope, because I know that He is good. Even though it is hard to see how good will be possible in such a horrible circumstance, faith drives me to believe that God is good and He will be glorified and that "nothing is impossible with God."(Luke 1:37) Faith doesn't lessen the pain of loss or minimize the grief, but it brings the light of hope and truth to the darkest of places. We know that one day, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."(Revelation 21:3) For now I cling to this. I cling to the love of my Savoir and the truth of His Word, because without Him, I am nothing.