Conversation

Yesterday, this e-mail conversation transpired with a friend:

Friend: So, I was rereading your blog...

What conclusion did you and your lunch-friend come to about this subject: "God allowing us to experience things just for the purpose of realizing we will never understand them." That is intriguing to me. I have been mulling it around in my head, and I am not sure what I think about it.

Me: Nothing really -- that was the whole point. Just this allowance that is made in our lives for things to happen so that we will realize we are powerless, we have no control, we will never have understanding, etc. I think the ultimate goal was that we would realize God's sovereignty and our absolute dependence upon Him. (My lunch friend was talking about something out of her Beth Moore study, In the Pit, I think.)

Of course I don't know what to think of Zachary's death, or any other. They are all senseless to me, just as I'm sure all deaths are. I don't know that I will ever wrap my mind around it, and I don't know that more is meant to it than just some random theft by the enemy. It at least all seems worth something to imagine there was some greater purpose or intention behind it all, when there probably wasn't. Not to say that God won't take it and use it for good -- He will because He says He will -- but other than that, I don't know. I don't know any scripture that would verify He does/allows things to happen just so we will be puzzled. That just doesn't seem like Him to me, so I don't know what to do with that. I probably need to talk to my friend to get the scriptural references behind the point she was making.

I still need my lunch friend's scripure references, but I found something myself, and I have to say it hurts. It's so much nicer to be elevated in some sort of pride to think that my experiences, these deaths, are because I'm such a fantastic believer and such an amazing parent that the enemy specifically targets me and my babies. What it really comes down to, really, is that things happen so that God will be glorified in my life, which is precisely what I've asked for.

His disciples asked him,
"Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents
that he was born blind?"
"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus,
"but this happened so that the work of God
might be displayed in his life."
-- John 9:2-3

It's so much easier when God fits into my tidy little box of my extremely limited understanding, but ultimately, I do want -- no, need -- more of Him no matter what that means. I do not like to think of what that could mean, but I know that really He is all I have and He is all I need.

Oh, such a struggle.
Such an amazing struggle.

"We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us.
We are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."
C.S. Lewis

"Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
Psalm 27:14