Have you ever dealt with something for years…something you didn’t quite deal with in the past that keeps coming up in circumstances in your life? I’ve been thinking a lot about something lately that I believe God is trying to get me to finally deal with and settle in my mind and heart.

In the back of my mind, I have always thought that something bad would happen to me or my family. At one point a long time ago, for example, I feared that if I had children there would be something terribly wrong with them. Since my children have been born, Will, seven almost eight years old and Sidney, three, I have been even more aware that something could happen to them. I guess my awareness of the evil in this world has heightened, not to the point of living in a bubble. It has never been an overwhelming fear, just in the back of my mind, which leads me to believe that is why it has never been completely dealt with.

Last year, when Steven Curtis Chapman’s precious Maria, his 5-year-old daughter, died suddenly from an accident, I was numb. Well, numb is probably not the word. I felt a lot of emotion. I was shaken! I wrestled with God over this and wondered why. Why did she have to die, and in such a way? I of course went immediately to the question…what would I do in their situation? I hoped I would respond the way they did, but realized there was a very real chance that I would not. That is when I realized, this all comes down to faith and believing in the sovereign will of God and the unfailing love of God. Did I believe He loved me, Russell, Will and Sidney completely and that His will was the ASOLUTE best? Could something so tragic in my eyes actually be used by God to bring about a great plan in the lives of everyone around us?
I questioned a long time and lately have really been going over all of it in my mind. I want to know that I know that I know that God is sovereign and that He works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to HIS purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Yesterday, I watched a video of Louie Giglio talking about struggles and major life tragedy. He said that when we go through things on this earth, serious things that shake the very ground we are walking on, our lives become a megaphone. We can either use the megaphone to say there is no God – how could a God that is all about love allow something like this into my life? Or, we can use it to shout even louder that the only thing in this life that really matters is holding on to the anchor of the cross, that we serve a God that is bigger than any cancer, or divorce or death. If we know Him and have a relationship with the Lover of our souls, then we have already experienced death when we died to ourselves, took up the cross and followed Him! We have a higher purpose than just to preserve our life on this earth. We have a purpose, THE purpose, to make much of Jesus!!

I don’t know what you are going through. There are a lot of awful things that happen in this life! Some so horrible that you question everything you’ve ever believed. I believe we will all have hardships to some degree. Some are physical, some are emotional and spiritual. Some are kept inside, some are screamed out for the world to see and hear. But I believe through all of them we have a very intimate God that saw all of it coming and is loving us through it all! I’m trying to grasp that truth the best way I can. I haven’t had a lot of tragedy in my life so far but I know that when things happen, I want my life to shout loud like a megaphone that GOD IS FAITHFUL and give all the glory to Him for the miraculous things that He will do through it all!