When trusting God hurts....

Trust is a tough one, especially in the face of adversary, pain and loss. Disappointment will set a vendetta against that word trust unlike anything else. We get our hopes set on something circumstantial and when it doesn't come through the way we thought it would or should, we crumble in a heap of heart break. We also place the blame on those we hold responsible, particularly when it seems like something God should have "taken care of" and it doesn't look the way we had anticipated it to look if he were, indeed involved and in control. I dealt with a few of those things this morning, a dear friend of mine sent me a text as she sat in the waiting room of a doctor's office, overwhelmed by fear that she would miscarry, for a second time, a baby she very much wanted- and she had. My daughter much to my surprise and her dismay was placed in third grade to repeat instead of moving on to the fourth grade. Don't get me wrong, I am not comparing miscarriage and repeating the third grade, but what I am putting in the same category is very real heart break and devastating disappointment- both to my 9 year old daughter and my sweet friend in her twenties. The truth of it is that no matter our age or which end of the spectrum of pain the events of lives fall under, each person's pain is very real. Each person's pain forms into the  question, "Why?". So, where do we go from this point? There is no answer in the midst of devastation that will alleviate the pain. We've all heard, or probably even half- heartedly said the obligatory, "God knows what He is doing." But how deeply do we believe this, when hearing it or when saying it? What comfort is it to believe that God is the creator and sustainer of life yet allows miscarriages every day? Sometimes we think we should rise above the pain of our situation and suffer well, translating that to mean we ignore the hurt altogether. Sometimes we try to purpose our pain, participating in a proverbial game of tetris with all of our disadvantages, disappointments and devastations, purposing that if we will situate all of our hurts just right we can fashion a meaningful end to all of it. I think I have found that sometimes things just hurt, they just do and hurting isn't wrong. I've found that I may not have a choice in the matter that allows me to exercise the control freak within and put my hands all over something to fix it, or to alleviate someone's pain. I've found that it's not always my place to explain away and justify the reasons that something bad or hurtful happened. I've found that I AM NOT JESUS. I AM NOT THE CREATOR AND SUSTAINER OF LIFE. I AM NOT THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE WHO HOLDS EVERYTHING TOGETHER. It is not my job to spout off every verse I can think of to try to cushion the blow, or to pour liquid sunshine in the wound and Pollyanna my way through life insisting on playing the glad game with every suck situation I see someone in. Sometimes life just hurts and it's hard and the only choice I have in the matter is to weep with those that weep, to mourn with those that mourn. To pray with all my heart that this person will find that God is trustworthy and faithful, that He is sovereign and that while it seems harsh that God CAN prevent things that for reasons far beyond my understanding he chooses not to, He is still GOOD. I have to choose to rest in the truth that God knew Riann would end up repeating third grade and Jocelyn would move on to the fifth grade, and while she has spent the last several days crying and struggling through it, and I've spent the last week wrestling with insisting on them moving her forward any ways that I ultimately believe God has a plan and only he knows how he will use this in her life. We've gotten through losing her father, we will get through repeating third grade, but it may not be painless, or without frustration. I've had to accept that it isn't our responsibility or place to put purpose to our pain or anyone else's pain, it's God's and only he is able to make the transaction of beauty for ashes. I have realized that while in the midst of hardship myself, or seeing someone in the midst of their's I can only trust the Lord to love them as deeply as he loves me, to be as faithful to them as he has been to me, and to walk side by side with them as they work through all of the tough, all of the ugly, and to touch sacred places in them that only he can get to. The misconception that trusting God makes things hurt less or makes everything go right, the way we want them to, is a fraudulent representation of the gospel. Life would still hurt, whether I had Jesus or not, the difference is that in the midst of suffering I can believe that he is already orchestrating things that I am not privy to, to ultimately work things out for my good and for his glory.