Life as I knew it changed 120 days ago. With that change also came doubt. My faith was shaken and I lacked
understanding. As my last blog indicated
I was angry. What I did do is continue
to “hope.” Hope that I would survive the
pain that I endured and continue to endure today. People
say that you never “get over” a loss, but you learn to live with it. I never knew what that meant. What I know is that time marches on and we
have no choice but to move with it. The
saying you have to go through it to get through it makes more sense to me.
With that being said, several weeks ago God was leading me
to read “The Shack” again. I read it
several years ago and I couldn’t even remember major details of the book. However every time I walked by my book shelf
God would be that small voice and say “pick it up.” I fought it.
I can’t think of one book that I picked up to read a second time. I often don’t finish books the first time. I would walk by the shelf and be led to look
that direction. “The Shack” continued to
glare at me. Finally, I walked over and
picked it up. I figured that there must
be something in that book that I needed to see again.
I started reading…… then on page 92 I began to see exactly
what I needed to see. God was speaking to me through that book like
he was speaking to Mack (the main character).
Page 92 said “I want to heal the wound that has grown inside of you and
between us.” Then it continued to say “When
all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me.” WOW!
I was losing sight of God.
After I read that I starting thinking about the idea of
hoping, believing and knowing. Faith is
knowing what we do not see. Knowing
comes with time. Knowing comes with
having experiences with God. Knowing is
stronger than believing and so much more than hoping. Knowing requires that we TRUST.
My challenge for you
today is to examine where you are on the idea of hoping, believing, and
knowing when it comes to your faith.
Sometimes we don’t see the whole picture, sometimes we have to take that
step before we see the stair case. Sometimes
we just have to “know” that it is okay to lack understand as to why things
happen.
“God doesn’t always stop the storm, but if he doesn’t he will
always calm HIS child.”
