She ran from her car not hearing or seeing anything. The hospital loomed ahead making her feel so small and helpless. She came in through the emergency room doors where she saw her husband talking to a doctor. The looks on there faces were grim. Her husband pulled her aside; choking back tears, he broke it to her.
"Jane, she's gone."
" What do you mean?!" Her voice rose.
" Catherine took the full force of the car...." He broke into a sob and tried to regain his voice. Jane knew. She cried, then began to wail.
God Why?!
During times of loss, pain and deep sorrow it is hard not ask God "why?"
I asked God that last night when I heard the tragic news of a local missing teenage girl we've been praying and hoping would be found alive was found buried deep in the ground 357 days after her disappearance.
How can God let something like this happen? If God is good all the time then why didn't He prevent it?
His hand is steady
A person that we know from history that was very familiar with loss was Job. His story is found in the book called Job. The curious thing is, Satan came with the angels and presented himself to God. The Lord asked where he came from and he replied that he was roaming the earth. God then suggested that he consider Job.
What? Why would God do that?! Well, listen to this.
Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied.
Then Satan asks if God is protecting him and is blessed. He challenges God by telling Him "But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."
God told Satan to pretty much do whatever he wants with everything Job had but not to touch Job.
Job lost his fields, His servants, his livestock, and all his children. Now to make matters worse, Satan told God that Job would curse God if his own body was harmed. God gave Satan the go ahead and he was inflicted with a terrible skin disease. He suffered through so much yet he did not curse God.
It sounds like God allows some hard times so we can grow closer to Him. Most of the time it's in the bad times when we really open up our hearts, being brutally honest because we're not afraid of getting on God's "bad side." Jesus tells us that He's always there to comfort us and cry with us.
His hand is steady and firm.
I told you....
Some hard times can actually be prevented. Let that sink in for a moment...
An eleven year old girl was brutally raped by her stepfather. She died within twenty-four hours because her body was so small and fragile and couldn't handle it.
How could that have been prevented? What If I were to tell you that God warned the neighbor two doors down for days to go and visit that little girl? Maybe she would have noticed something terribly wrong?
That particular scenario was fictional but this kind of thing does happen. God's voice is very quiet and soft. The thing is, I think He is so quiet because those who truly want to follow Jesus have to be still and listen and then we'll know it's His voice. (Psalm 46:10)
How many times could we have escaped death? Just imagine all those times growing up and through adulthood when you or someone else would say "I have a bad feeling." That's God giving you a hint.
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:1-2
In this verse it explains that we need to be aware of God's Word. It seems impossible to constantly be thinking about and reading the Bible. God wants us to be familiar with His letters so when we hear it we know it's from God. Now, knowing that we have Jesus and are changed, there is no way we can still walk in stride with those who are still sloshing in sin and living their own way. If we still sit in the same place as them we can easily be pulled back down again.
In the hard times, that's when we need to hug Jesus tighter, read His word longer and listening to His voice harder. If we don't, we can fall back. We have to remember that we live in a world that God gave the gift of choice. That's what makes humans so different. We can all choose what we like and don't like and what we want to do and don't want to do. Now, that's why God is good all the time. He watches over everything, He whispers to us and we can choose to go against His voice and do it our way. If something bad happens out of that choice, you cannot blame God because He warned you.
In cases of illness or sudden deaths and other unexplained things, I don't know what God's plan is, but I choose to start looking for God's hand in those mysterious circumstances. I cannot explain all the mysteriousness of God because then we wouldn't be able to wonder, putting us in the position to have to throw ourselves off the cliff and land in his gentle arms.
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