Give thanks to the LORD
and proclaim His greatness.
Let the whole world know what He has done.
I Chronicles 16:8
I met, just the other day, with a young woman to hear her story. We lingered over a late breakfast, sipping tea and nibbling sweet potato home-fries.
How do you share a lifetime in an hour?
How could I listen to without weeping?
And yet she did and I didn’t. I held back those tears until this morning. Now, in the dark, with my Bible open and my teapot steaming, my heart won’t stop the flow of tears.
Why does so much pain happen?
And I don’t know the answer, not really. I just know that it does. People choose and their choices hurt innocent little red-headed girls.
But something happened as we sat across from each other in that little breakfast place not far from here. Something powerful, something… wise.
As this woman shared her story-full-of-awfulness, she just refused to give in to pity. Instead, she wove hope throughout each chapter, noticing God’s goodness and His people’s beauty towards her just when she needed it.
Hers was not that annoyingly fake kind of “God is good” parroting of what no one believes— but a wide-eyed discovery that, indeed, God showed Himself good in the midst of terrible bad.
And I think that’s why I didn’t break down and choke on the tears pushing behind my eyes… because she wouldn’t let me.
Her hope was contagious—her deep down belief that God stood with her every hurtful moment of her the-way-it-shouldn’t-be story.
That is how I want to live my days…
Overflowing with hope,
caught up in God’s goodness,
choosing to sparkle with the joy of His care for me in spite of—
well, in spite of the bumping and bruising and unavoidable badness that happens some days.
From my heart,
Diane
Do you have a story you can tell us? Maybe let this corner of the world know about His goodness to you?