What do you do when you go from hearing “We’re pregnant!” to “She lost the baby” and we need your prayers? I got the second phone call this morning. My younger brother, Steve, and his precious wife, Jen, were expecting their second child in May. They were so happy. They have a beautiful 1 year old, Haley Ray, but were thrilled to be adding to their family.
What do you say? What do you do? I immediately sent Steve a text message (isn’t technology great) to tell him I was so sorry for their loss and I was praying for them. I happened to be coming out of intercessory prayer at my church when my mother called, so I did a U-turn and grabbed some of the ladies to join me in prayer. God is so good!
Since then, I’ve been asking God to help me understand. I ran by the grocery store to pick up a few items for dinner. As I put the box of butter in my buggie, it hit me. I would never sit down with a box of butter and open it to eat a stick of butter. YUCK! I also wouldn’t want to drink down a couple of raw eggs. BUT I love a good chocolate chip cookie from time to time and those items are necessary to make chocolate chip cookies.
Our lives are like mixing bowls. Sometimes we are given things that we don’t like or understand – a stick or two of butter- and if we look at them in isolation, they don’t make sense. But, when they are mixed in with all of the other experiences that come our way, we begin to see they were just one ingredient in the mix. Alone they taste bad, but when they are blended with all of the other events of our life, we get chocolate chip cookies.
The Lord wastes nothing! He will take everything that comes our way- the good, the bad and the ugly (as my mama used to say) and work it together for good. [Romans 8:28] We serve a good God and He desires to give us good gifts. So, when life doesn’t make sense or hurts, we can trust Him. Crawl in your Daddy’s lap and tell Him where you’re hurting. He cares. “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7