How do I accept that?

Pastor Keith shared this story last Sunday....Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room. Instead the angels were given a small space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied, "Things aren't always what they seem." The next night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night's rest. When the sun came up the next morning the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field. The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel, "How could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him. The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you let the cow die." "Things aren't always what they seem," the older angel replied. "When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he wouldn't find it." "Then last night as we slept in the farmers bed, the angel of death came for his wife. I gave him the cow instead. Things aren't always what they seem."

Ok so things aren't always what they seem. I can accept that. In fact, I have lived by the saying "things happen for a reason" for most of my life. My friends have heard me say it many times and at times disagreed with it. My husband has, in some situations, asked me not to say it. Understandable of course. But then there's something that happens to you... a something that is so painful that it shakes you to your core. In my case, my little brother taking his own life... you may or may not know my story. You may or may not relate to my story. But I bet you too have a story.. a story of when the world as you know it is pulled out from under your feet. Causing all that you thought to be true to feel, at the moment, like a lie. "Things happen for a reason"??? Wow, please tell me how to continue to accept that. How do I NOT get wrapped up in the Why God and Why ME questions...

Trust. That's all we can do is trust. My husband and I found ourselves within a prayer group two Sundays ago... something very new to us and a bit uncomfortable. Something incredible happened to us, everyone there were strangers, no one knew what we walked in with on our hearts. But as the people began to pray (out loud and all at once, something again very new to the both of us) they started to feel what was on our hearts without us saying anything. Without us expressing a word of why we were there. In a town that doesn't know us one bit... no way that they could have heard our story but they could feel the bruises on our souls. God shared our story for us.

God doesn't cause the bad things that happen to us. But he has given us a promise that He will turn this bad experience into something good. With faith, God will give purpose to these experiences. If we believe that God is in control, he will ultimately turn evil into good. This is the trust that I'm talking about. We may not understand it or see the reason but if we have faith, we can trust that the outcome will have a purpose. And sometimes God's purpose is not for us to understand but to trust, "things aren't always what they seem."

Our prayer for this week is that we know that we are a follower of God, living with certainty about the Father’s love and direction for our lives.

Sara Lester
Wings of Hope