Fighting to believe God is good

The tug of war in my soul is fierce.  It is one that wants to rear it's ugly head when life does not go according to plan...which means that it rears its head constantly.  About a year after my oldest child was born, after an Anne Graham Lotz Bible meeting, I went home and pulled out my Bible.  I dusted off the front cover, cracked open the New Testament for the first time, and it was like taking a long drink of cool water after a blistering summer's day.  For the first time, the Word opened to me and I drank long and drank deep. 

                                     

Life suddenly seemed full of hope and it seemed like with faith anything was possible.

Fast forward roughly sixteen years and life has come at us hard and fast.  It has left bruises and cuts and wounds that I have attempted to stretch a band-aid across.  It has been messy and beautiful and rarely boring...but often left me questioning my understanding of the Word of God.  I have a hard time reconciling Isaiah 41:10 with what my actual life experience is and has been.  Or Jeremiah 17:14.  Or the abundant promises of peace - for example, John 14:27.  Peace has been so far from my heart for so long, I don't actually remember what it feels like.

                          

I want to scream it is unfair.  It is so unfair.  This season right now is so so very hard.  It is hard to explain just how hard it is.  We spent from late spring through mid to late summer very sick.  That in itself was awful.  Reading about and seeing all the fun summer things families were doing and meanwhile, we were basically living at the doctor offices, our pharmacy, the UTC, and the ER, oh and just for fun also the vet office. 

            

But all of that, was nothing compared to the fall out from that.  The underlying health issues that my kids have, they have basically exploded.

            

                          (this is what I feel like at the end of the day - ha!)

Last night I poured out my heart to my husband.  Asking him where was the goodness of God in all of this?  I know that I know that I know that He is good, but my experience in life does not feel like it is mirroring that belief.  Does that make sense?  I told my husband that the hardest part of this journey is that there is no guarantee that tomorrow will be better than today, I do know from experience that everything will eventually get back to a normal pace and that things will even out - but it may be longer yet.  How do I hang on to hope in the midst of the hard?  It doesn't help for me to tell myself or to be told that it could be worse.  I fully realize that, but that is not a balm to apply to the hurt right now.  It just increases the dread of 'oh no, what if it does get worse'?  Or the guilt of, 'who am I to complain when so and so lost their child or their home or their marriage or...?'

   

Then this morning dawned and I was awoken by our very, very old dog wanting to go out (he actually got me up at 4 am, thankfully, I was able to delay him until 6) and I was standing outside in the dark trying to get him to hurry up.  All of a sudden I saw the shadow of some sort of animal and I felt fear claw up my spine.  All I knew was this wasn't a cat, another dog, or the cute bunnies and squirrels...it was something that looked somewhat like a rat.  It came shuffling through some old leaves and stuff, making quite a racket, I got my phone ready to capture it or use as a weapon (not exactly sure how that would have worked exactly) when out waddled an Armadillo!   Much better than all of the terrible things I was imagining!!

I snapped pictures and went in to wake up my youngest, my fellow nature nut and we joyed in the fact that an Armadillo basically waddled right up to our front door.  As the morning sun peeked out she reminded me to check a chrysalis we have been watching on our hose spout...and then it dawned on me.  Here is the goodness of God, delighting us in the midst of the hard.  He has been showing us wonder after wonder almost every day - I just was so focused on the hard that I almost missed it.  He is a God of intricate wonder and beauty.

 He takes such care in the cocoon of a caterpillar turning it to a butterfly - something so temporary - it started off tucked and bejeweled - seriously it looks like golden jewels sealed it shut.  SO beautiful.  It now is turning translucent and inside is tucked what I believe is a GORGEOUS monarch butterfly. 

You see I have been approaching life through a titled lense.  Believing that God owed us something different than what He was giving us.  I am the creation, my children are the creation, NOT the Creator.  Why am I, the clay pot, whining to the potter, why are you forming us this way?  I have no idea where He is going but I do know the truth is that He determined our days before even one came to be, He knitted my children together in my womb, and they are His workmanship (not mine), with good deeds He prepared for them ahead of time (see Psalm 139 & Ephesians 2:10).  If He is going to so carefully create a caterpillar that makes such a beautiful (albeit temporary) cocoon, then how much more has He carefully planned my children's lives?