Goodness

I've always wondered how God works.... people tell you all the time how they perceive God's work or how God speaks to them. For instance - you lose your keys. You pray "God, help me find my keys." You turn around and there they are. So, you thank God for helping you find your keys. That never really sit well with me... I never believed God is up in Heaven just waiting to help us with every menial thing. But how am I supposed to know how He works??

It also always bothered me when people would sit on their asses and wait for God to give them "a sign." Should I leave my lover? Should I quit my job? Will I ever fall in love? We sit on the couch in our living room and complain to God that we're single or we hate where we are in life. It's like that person believes "if I sit here and have faith, God will answer my prayer." But He won't... He doesn't drop things into our laps. We have to actually go out and do things.

I'm reading this book "The Shack" and for the first time ever, I actually relate to the character Mack in the story. The way he talks to God, and the way Papa, Sarayu and Jesus all speak with him and explain how They work... it's the first time I feel like screaming "THANK YOU!" I finally feel like someone has written into words how I have always felt God works. God CAN make a horrible thing not happen, but it is not how He chooses to work: instead, God takes a situation - any situation - good or bad - and brings out positives in that circumstance. You learn from everything. God took this horrible circumstance that Mack had to live through, and made so many positives. It is not a book for everyone, but somehow I truly felt this book spoke to me. Like God was up there saying to ME "here is how I work with YOU. Maybe not how I speak with everyone, but this is how it is with YOU. Here is some clarity in your life. Everything is going to be ok."

I know some people see God as something that is untouchable... something you have to say the perfect words of "Dear Lord" with hands raised and only praises coming out of your lips - praises found only in the bible, which you repeat word for word. I've never felt that. I specifically remember sitting in my old Honda Civic ("Cheyenne" haha) and screaming at the top of my lungs and hitting my steering wheel, angry with God that my life wasn't working out as I had planned. And then even angrier that He did nothing about it. He let me scream, He let me be angry. It was my lowest point in my life... it was rock bottom... at that time I lost my boyfriend, pretty much every single friend I had, my church, my life. And I was pissed about it - and I let God know. But God didn't MAKE these things happen... he didn't TELL my friends to abandon me, or my boyfriend to treat me that way, or for any of those horrible things to happen to me. But He DID take the situation and make it so, so good. I can see that now.

God also didn't take my baby away as a way to "get back at me" for being a sinner. It's not His fault I miscarried. He could have prevented it, but He has His reasons for not. Who am I to question God? But... even though I can't see it right now... and I may not see it for months, or years or ... ever ... but God is taking that situation and bringing out the Good in it.

I feel comfort in knowing that.