When In Despair

Sometimes, things don't go well. You can be the best, most devout Christian...but horrible things happen.

.

Your spouse leaves for work, and dies before the end of the day.

Your son or daughter deploys to Afghanistan...and dies on Afghanistan's plains.

You go to the doctor, feeling like you've got the flu, and several tests later, you're going to die. Painfully.

Where is God in all of this? Where is the love, the care, the plans for good, and not evil?

Some will say that you didn't pray hard enough. Some will say that you didn't have the formula for answered prayers. Your faith will save you, they say, but you doubted. And God turned His Face from your doubt.

Codswallop.

Jesus doubted. He asked why God abandoned Him. He despaired, in agony.

And He died, His Blood running out to water.

We live to serve God, but when we do this we commit to His plans. We commit to what He has to do in a world gone horribly wrong. And in this we have to commit to the idea that He may use our pain and loss in a higher purpose - His purpose.

God's plans are not ours.

The promise we have is that He will never leave us, however dark the road. He will not leave us in our pain, and in our doubt.

We may be crucified, but He'll cradle our broken bodies in His arms, and breathe life into us again.

When you despair, remember than. What was good enough for Jesus is good enough for us.

And try to keep working. Keep moving.

If all you can do is lean forward, then just lean.