The other morning I sat around a table drinking coffee and solving the world’s problems – like Clairol versus L’Oreal - with fellow stay-at-home moms. We shared candidly about our various hair coloring nightmares: One woman experimented with an alternative brand only to end up with green hair – she was a blonde originally. Another was visiting family in Norway and was cajoled into trying something “new” which, surprise, turned out to be bright red. I was very daring too, fifteen years ago, and tried dying my hair “deep brown” (my natural hair color is dark brown – I’m such a risk taker!). The “deep brown” I was going for transformed my dark brown hair to a horrifying jet black. I looked like Morticia from the Addams family.
We laughed with each other (and at each other), sipping our coffee drinks, sweetly enjoying our moment of female bonding. The conversation easily and naturally moved on to something about children: who wants more, how many more, any plans for more, etc, etc, etc. Almost effortlessly the discussion took on a more serious tone as one woman began to open up and share her reasons for having only one child. Her story so deeply touched my heart that it is all I have been able to think about for the past week. It’s late, my own little ones are all tucked into bed, and I am finally finding the time to put my thoughts into actual words.
This beautiful mom had tried for years to conceive, and finally at age thirty-eight, had a baby girl. It wasn’t but a few days after she left the hospital from giving birth that she developed a sharp pain in her side that wouldn’t go away. She was quickly diagnosed with cancer and began treatment immediately. The chemotherapy, while successfully wiping out the cancer, also succeeded in destroying the rest of her eggs. She suffered from chemo-induced menopause. As she opened up and recounted the fears and moments of weakness and questioning God, my heart was overwhelmed and drawn to her.
Another mom entered the conversation, relaying her own story of losing a baby in her third trimester, and due to complications, had an emergency hysterectomy…at age twenty-six. She had already been blessed with two healthy children, but the pain of this loss, both baby and hysterectomy, was staggering.
Both women - diverse in their appearance, backgrounds and age – echoed the same conviction: God was with them through the entire journey, and it was only God who could bring them through.
Amazing. So often I am prone to shake my fist to the sky when I see something happen that doesn’t make sense to me, or doesn’t fit in my little boxes of what is fair and what is not fair. I get angry when I don’t understand the “why” - even more so when there is no apparent “why”. I can become introspective and sorry for myself because I feel cheated that I lost one too many years to depression and an eating disorder. Then, almost blind-sided, my eyes are opened wide to the suffering of others. I cringe at my self-preoccupation. There is so much pain in this world, and again, I want to understand “why”. Sometimes God just doesn’t make sense.
A brief thought was expressed, but as I have been processing I have drawn it out a little further: It’s not so much that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. He does, in fact, give us more than we can handle. It is during those times when we are under the immensity of a difficult situation and we can’t possibly bear anymore, that God reveals His supreme greatness and strength and carries us through. It is not in our strength – ever – but Christ in us that will empower us to cope with the hardships, sickness, loss and pain that we will all experience, to some degree, in our lives.
Jesus never promised us a rose garden. He never guaranteed a life free from heartache and sorrow.
John 16:33
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Jesus also insured that, though life may come at us in unsightly ways and take us down a road we weren’t prepared to walk, He is still working in us to produce an abundant life.
John 10:10
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
It doesn’t make sense: Living life to the fullest, yet facing a world of trouble. God’s ways are so far beyond my tiny scope of vision. I’m fiddling around with Crayola watercolor paints, and He’s looking at the masterpiece oil painting He completed long ago. In my season of darkness and shadows, His hand made brushstrokes across the canvas of my life and created something beautiful and breathtaking. The thief tried to take the essence of my friends’ lives and destroy any hope for a future. Yet, I hear in their testimonies that, while there are still questions, still moments of weakness and doubt, that God is their sustainer. When there was trouble, they had hope because God overcome that obstacle, and now they can live in the fullness of Him.
It’s really not about making sense of God because, quite frankly, none of us ever will. God will never be One of whom we can fully fathom or understand. I will have “why’s” on a daily basis. God may allow us to walk through the darkest season of our lives, and it may never make sense in earthly terms, but God is working on a masterpiece far grander than the here and now. His ways are not our ways, but they are higher. His thoughts are not our thoughts, but they are purer and wiser. The world, in its sinfulness, may try to destroy us, but the One who holds the world in His hands is holding us too - steady and ready to breathe new life into our broken souls.