For those of you who were not with us, I read the story to the kids, and then we talked briefly about how there is Truth in this book, and in this way of looking at good and bad in the world, and since we trust that God is in bigger than anything bad, and He has promised to watch out for us, and He can and does redeem all bad things, we need to keep perspective when bad things happen to us in life. That we might not know until heaven why certain bad things have happened to us. That in the middle of something that looks very bad to us, God just might be doing something really Good.
That's the most muddled summary--I think (hope!) I was more lucid in my explaination on Monday!
But Moms, I saw this post today from an amazing young woman who is mothering 13 girls in Africa, and it is the perfect heart lesson to take those ideas from Monday to greater Truth. Here is an excerpt:
Her life, it has been hard. She is in Jinja because she had to flee from the war in the North that tore apart her life and her family. Her son was shot last week by a soldier on the border of Uganda and Sudan and frail, little Jja Ja had made the 13 hour bus ride in the stifling heat and watched as they had lowered her last living child into the ground. The journey had taken almost a week and when she came back she found her grandchildren sick and even though her whole body ached from travel she still took them to the clinic and continued bending over her work so that she could make enough money to put food on the table. Now she is back and we are happy to embrace her and ask about her journey and ask how we can pray for her.
“What ever He wants," she chuckles.
I look at the joy that is spilling out of her wrinkled face and I repeat the words that she has spoken in my head and that doesn’t make sense. She is hurt and she is suffering and she is laughing about it and sparkling with beauty and radiating Joy.
That doesn’t make sense. Not to me. Not yet.
But she already knows what I am just learning. That even this, it is from Him. Even this, it is Holy ground. This thing that I label suffering, it is really Joy.
“Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?” Amos 3:6
I live with these human eyes, and with these human eyes of mine I label. I label one thing as good and one thing as bad. I label moments as blessing or burden. And I forget that all this labeling, it is not my right, not my place, not mine to do. To declare what is a gift in my life and what is a curse is to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to sit in the garden full of abundance and beauty and choose the forbidden. The knowledge of good and evil, that was never intended for me. Could I, like Jja Ja Maria just quit my labeling and say, "Whatever God wants. Whatever HE wants!"
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This is the kind of thing this young woman writes all the time in her blog--I highly recommend anyone who appreciates Truth talkin' to "follow" her blog.
Love to you all this Friday!
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