When We Don't Understand

 

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"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD,

"plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)

My son, Steven, was four-years-old when he contracted a severe case of the flu. He looked up at me with hollow eyes and slumped like a rag doll in my lap. When I took my limp little one to the doctor, he quickly surmised that Steven was dehydrated and needed to be admitted into the hospital immediately.

My heart broke as nurses strapped my baby boy onto a table and began to place IVs into his tiny arms. "Mommy, Mommy, help me," he cried. "They're hurting me! Make them stop!"
"No, honey," I tried to reassure him with tears that matched his own.

"They're not trying to hurt you. They are going to make you all better." He cried. I cried. The nurses cried.

Standing there, I could only imagine what was going through Steven's little mind: Why are these people hurting me. Why doesn't Mommy make them stop? She must not love me. She's not protecting me. If she loved me, she wouldn't let this happen. She must not care about me?

Then I had an extraordinary moment with God as He began to give me a glimpse into how He feels when I am going through a painful time that is for my benefit, but I can't understand. I cry out, "I thought you love me? Why have you deserted me? Why don't You make it stop!" But God allows the painful remedy to do its work. To me it may feel like God doesn't care, but to God, He knows that the temporary pain is necessary to make me whole.

If you are going through a difficult time right now -- a circumstance that you don't understand -- know that your Heavenly Father is right by your side. He loves you dearly and sometimes allows pain because it is the best remedy for our ultimate good.

 

Do you think God hurts when we have to go through painful situations? Let's don't guess. Read John 11:33-36. How did Jesus feel when He saw the pain his friends were going through?

 

Pain is sometimes hard to understand. C.S. Lewis said that "God whispers in our pleasures but shouts in our pain." Pain is never without purpose. Let's don't waste our sorrows but use them to minister to a hurting world.

 

Let's Pray
Dear Heavenly Father, I am so glad that You will never leave me. I'll admit that sometimes I whine, even cry, because I don't understand why You allow certain things to happen in my life. But I know that You are Sovereign and nothing happens by chance in the life of your children. You are shaping and molding me into a person that You desire me to be. I trust You and Your ways even when I don't understand. In Jesus' Name, Amen

 

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