Day 123 - In Devastation

Have you read this book Same Kind of Different As Me? It's an amazing true story about the connection between a homeless man, an affluent art dealer and the woman who brought them together, and so much more. The book and its true-life main characters give an amazing explanation and understanding of an important topic that we see all the time. Why does God take home people who are doing such great work on Earth, especially before their time? How often do we hear a story or know someone personally going through an intense battle and we wonder, "why God?" I think about it all the time with little Maddie James who passed a few months ago. I think about the people who are left suffering after and how they are supposed to deal with it. I felt like there were some really amazing quotes in the book that I wanted to share.

"The Word says, God put ever star in the heavens and even give ever one of em a name. If one of em was gon' fall out the sky, that was up to Him, too. Maybe we can't see where it's gon' wind up, but He can."

"There's somethin I learned when I was homeless; Our limitation is God's opportunity. When you get all the way to the end of your rope and there ain't nothin you can do, that's when God takes over."

"I'm just tellin you He sometimes needs to call the good ones home to bring glory to His name."

"....Clearly the bull's eye was God. It was He who ripped a gaping and irreparable hole in my heart. Without a gun or mask, He robbed me of my wife and stole my children's mother and my grandchildren's grandmother. I had trusted Him, and He failed me. How do you forgive that?"

"I remember what C.S. Lewis said of the clash between grief and faith: "The tortures occur," he wrote. "If they are unnecessary, then there is no God, or a bad one. If there is a God, then these tortures are necessary for no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't.""

"The pain of losing Deborah still brings tears. And I cannot mask my profound disappointment that God did not answer yes to our prayers for healing. I think He's okay with that. One of the phrases we evangelicals like to throw around is that Christianity is "not a religion; it's a relationship." I believe that, which is why I know that when my faith was shattered and I raged against Him, He still accepted me. And even though I have penciled a black mark in His column, I can be honest about it. That's what a relationship is all about."

All of that also reminded me of some notes I took recently about being in a devastating situation.

• Faith is not telling God what we want Him to do.
• Have the courage to see the fulfillment of God's promises. It's not going to be less hard if you ignore Him.
• You will be offended by God sometime in your life but you must trust that He is trustworthy.

There is so much pain in life but out of that pain, joy can blossoms into something new and different. You would have to read the whole book to see how it did in their circumstance, but if we can open our eyes we can see it all around us.