TRUST

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power which is at work within us…" (NIV Ephesians 3:20 )

Whenever I start to let my worries get away from me, I try to remember that verse.What is to worry about? And if  "nothing is impossible with God"…then I guess that means He pretty much has the power to save us from any devastation. 

Oh wait…I had devastation happen to me-back in December 1984…my whole family wiped out and me barely alive. What happened there? Where was the Love then? And therein is the biggest struggle with Faith we have to rescue with…

"Why does God allow crap to happen when He's got the power to prevent it?" 

This question will bring one literally to one's knees.  Hopefully in a prayer request- to help us to (nervous drum role here) "accept" His decision… To accept that God allowed whatever man's free will has horribly done- to us and our loved ones.  "Accept"…because trying to figure out, the infamous "Why God?" answer, is utterly impossible for us mortals. "Help me to accept" has been a much better request for me. Not to say that in my early grief journey, I didn't also try to figure out the torturous "Why?"...

"Help me to accept"...Accept what exactly?…God's Will? God's allowance of what happened?" I think we all get hung up on the interpretation of "God's Will." 

As many have stated, God lets us have our free will-for good or for ill. My take on it is, God did NOT WANT my family to be wiped out by that speeding truck. BUT, God had full knowledge of what was going to happen ahead of time...(i.e. the truck driver's free will decision to forego stopping at the intersection). He allowed the wreck to happen…for reasons that I am incapable of understanding, with my limited mortal comprehension of the big picture. He did not take my family away…He received them into His All-Embracing Arms.

To me, there's a huge difference in God "wanting" and God "allowing" the accident to play out the way it did. If I believed that God had "wanted" that wreck to happen to fulfill some bigger purpose…I would not be in love with God today. But in my heart, I know that there is some "big picture" plan that God allowed this man's free will- caused- devastation to enfold the way it did. He did not want it…He allowed it. There's still reason to "trust God", if I believe this way. 

I think a survivor's past, may be a big determiner of how she/he interprets this worst of all personal faith crises. Anger and raging at God? Perhaps there is a history of responding to one's nuclear family in this manner. And maybe it worked?  Perhaps feeling shocked and paralyzingly numb- at what seems to be a concrete example of "betrayal of trust "?  Maybe there's been a lot of abandonment issues in one's past.   

I'm used to resignation…no amount of pleading produced effects when I was young. Love- yet  non-understandable indifference to my needs, often seemed to go hand in hand. Therefore, I feel perhaps I have struggled with less intensity with this most perplexing of Faith questions, having constantly felt a sense of resignation growing up…Hey, perhaps my desperate pleading for girly bedroom furniture (white French Provincial Canopy bed with gold trim-Sears Catalog circa 1966) falling on deaf ears, ultimately helped me greatly! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Maybe our grief journey is so different…not so much with the "stages" we all go through...but with what pattern of response we bring, to this table of tragedy known as child bereavement. Sometimes "less" really can lead to "more!" God is still worthy of our love and trust!