God is good

A family in my mom’s neighborhood have a 15 month old baby who drowned in the bathtub two weeks ago. Another family farther away have two little girls, ages 4 years, and 15 months, who were overcome by poisonous gas which was meant to rid their yard of pests.

I don’t know either of these families, or any more about them than what I have shared here. But my heart aches for them, for the unbelievable sorrow, regret, and horror they have endured and will live with for the rest of their lives.

One of the hard lessons I have learned in my life is that my prayers are always answered; not always as I would like, but always for my best good. Some things I have prayed, and pleaded, and wept for have not happened - and they were good things, things that would have brought happiness to many. I am left to wonder if I left anything undone, or if my Father, who knows more and sees more clearly than I, has a different plan than the one in my head. So I pick myself up and go on, trusting that what my Father wants for me is always better than what I want, and that submitting to his will is always the wise choice.

I remember thinking as a child that faith in my Savior can do anything; that if I have sufficient faith and pray enough, no good thing would be denied me. I still believe in the remarkable power of faith, I know it is real and is one of the tools our Father and his Son use to bless our lives and move us along the path to becoming who they desire us to be. But what about the times when my faith and prayers don’t produce the desired result? What about the fasting and faith, the pleading and praying, the worshiping and weeping, that have been answered with a loving ‘no’. Was my faith lacking? Were my prayers not intense or constant enough? Why are some of our pleadings mercifully granted while others seem to be unheard?

Yesterday I learned that the baby who drowned is doing remarkably well in the hospital, it seems he has turned a critical corner and will recover. (You can read the remarkable story on their blog ~ http://stakerzxposed.blogspot.com/). This morning I heard on the radio that the younger of the two girls has now followed her sister and has passed on. What made the difference? Certainly many were praying for all three of those babies, why is one family now filled with joy as the other plans a funeral for their two daughters?

God is good. He loves us. He is filled with compassion and mercy. He weeps when we weep, he knows our sorrows and grief. He is all knowing and all caring. It is difficult to understand why some are spared when others are not, why we all, at some time or other, experience heartache and bitter disappointment, why we may sometimes feel forsaken, forgotten, even abandoned.

Yet in his mercy our Father always sends comfort. Even when it seems our lives are damaged beyond repair - that our hearts will never be healed or whole again, there comes the sweet assurance that our Father and our Savior love us beyond our imagining.

I love this statement from CS Lewis:

...little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.