Have you ever read something and thought “I wish I’d written that?”
I’m passing along a blog that’s beautifully written and better than anything I could write today.
It’s written by the mother of a child who has a brain abnormality that may prove to be terminal.
Trials are kind of like being jerked out of a sunny day and being thrown down into a well. It seems that all there is down there is dirt, no light, close air and claustrophobia. It can seem more like a pit than a well. But I’m reminding myself that God only ever puts his children in places where water will eventually flow. It may be a desert or a dark night, but he never leaves us alone.
How do we weather these times? How does a family who’s lost a dad, or a parent who’s buried a baby, or a woman who’s been betrayed, or couple longing for a child, weather the pain, the loss, and the fear?
I’ve asked myself that quite a bit as we’ve watched others walk these roads and tasted our own grief over an abnormal baby brain and an unknown future.
The other day the kids and I were heading home in the van and Eliza was finishing up a book in the back seat. Seth was reading the last chapter along with her, not having read the rest of the book. He commented to her, “It looks like it’s going to be a happy ending.” She responded, “Oh, I don’t like happy endings. That means the book is over.” Then she gave this insight, “But when things are scary or sad at the end, you know there will be another chapter or book coming.”
I can’t tell you the relief I felt as I remembered that a tragic ending means one thing: there’s another chapter coming. No matter how pit-like the well we’ve been tossed into, we’ll be at the King’s right hand someday, just like Joseph went from thrown in a hole, sold down the road, and ended up as Pharaoh’s right hand man, we too, have a future that’s beyond any we could dream up from the bottom of a well.
I’m also realizing that the wells of suffering are a place where we get to drink more deeply of his grace than we ever have before, a place where our thirst for him is drowned in knowing him more deeply. This doesn’t mean that we want the suffering, but rather that what gets us through is his presence. When suffering comes our way, we can recognize that there’s more going on here than just the universe dealing us a bad hand. God has a story He’s writing and we’re meant to be transformed in the telling.
See what I mean?
Blessings!
Pastor Mark
