It's Raining

A friend of mine wrote yesterday of the various trials that she is currently under.  Her list was long and weighty.  They say that when it rains, it pours and this dear woman is in a deluge.  I bet you’ve been in them yourself with no umbrella in sight.  What saddened me was at the end of her email she wrote sarcastically, “And you say God loves me?  Right.”

I wrote her back that it’s raining over here too.  The transmission went out in our truck.  An unwanted delay and unplanned for expense.  My hip repair from two years ago has left my right leg one inch shorter than the left. Every step an unbalanced one.  I am thrown off.  My other hip is in need of repair as well and each movement is a painful one.  It’s discouraging.  I used to love to go for walks.  I am still trying though they are much shorter than they used to be.  I used to burst forth at times with dancing.  I still do but much less frequently, my moves limited.  I wonder if I will ever be that woman who took freedom of movement for granted again. No, I know I won’t.

But worse, one I love intimately, called asking for prayer because she, four and a half months pregnant, had begun to bleed.  Oh Jesus. Oh no.  Oh please.

Does God love us? Does He love us who lets such things plague us or come against our well being, our very lives?  Does He love us who allows much more horrible things happen to us, to those we love, to those around our broken and hurting world?

Yes.  Yes, He does.

His love is not up for grabs nor subject to scrutiny with every wrong that occurs.  If it is then we are tossed back and forth on the sea, our hearts sea sick and vulnerable.

God proved His love once and for all.   He paid the ultimate price to win us back to His heart by spending His own life to save ours.  Remember. He has chosen us.  We are His children.  We are loved beyond telling.  He is for us.

God never promised a life without pain.  In fact, Jesus told us it would come.  “In this life, you will have suffering.”  (John 17:33)  It seems that the One who is the Light of the world is prone to understatement. When suffering does come, as it will, we can either blame Him for it or invite Him into it that we might bear it together.  

Our Father is mercy. He is strength.  He is grace.  He is the Comforter.  We may not understand – ever – beyond a theological explanation of the effect of the freedom to choose bestowed upon us at creation.  We may not understand what befalls us save for the fact that we live in a fallen world and God calls us to love us and trust Him in the midst of it. We may not understand except for the truth that God hurts when we hurt, He weeps when we weep, catching our tears in His sacred bottle and in it all yearns for us to trust His goodness in the midst of sorrows.

And we can.  Oh dear friends, call out to Him in the sunshine and in the rain.  Press into His heart in the clear weather that you might know Him as the anchor of your souls when the wind howls.  Ask Him, our Divine Helper, to help you.  

He has saved us once. He is saving us still.  Save us now, Lord Jesus, Savior of the world.  We need You.