Imagine you had 10 wonderful grown children who were married, imagine you had dozens of pieces of real estate with no mortgages, imagine you had a staff of over 100 people whom you employed who respected and enjoyed working for you, imagine you owned a dozen fortune 500 companies and they were thriving. Imagine you were rich, had it all, were fit, were married to a wonderful person and were totally successful and totally content.
What would you do if one night you went to sleep in your comfy king sized bed, and were woken up by the panting of one staff member pounding at your door..."I...I...I was the only one who got away....there was a raid....all of your children, were murdered!" and then another knock at the door with another staff member panting again..."I...I...was the only one who got away...all of the staff have been imprisoned!" You stumble barely catching yourself to lean against the door frame when another person comes running..."I...don't know how to tell you...but all of your real estate was set fire...everything has burnt to the ground!" Then finally the last person runs up the driveway also catching his breathe and says,
"I just saw the breaking news, every one of your companies has been taken over by terrorists!"
What would you do? How would you feel? Your spouse falls to the ground wailing in utter grief. You?
After some days pass you find out that your bank accounts are all seized. No sooner you are riddled with disease and have hives all over your body, even on the inside of your mouth! Your in so much pain all over and you cant even chew food! Your friends (who you thought were friends) all abandon you. Your neighbors all think you're disgusting to look at, and so they have you thrown out of the city and sent to the garbage dump to live there because they don't want any of your disease or misfortune. Is there any end?
Incredibly horrible isn't it? How do you respond? What are you thinking? Where is God in all of this?
Why on earth would I write this on my blog? Because this is pretty much what happened to a person I am getting to know. He has given me incredible hope, amazing inspiration, and an intensely deep understanding and appreciation for LIFE!
He said something so profound that it has gone through my head over and over and over in the last couple of weeks. To meet someone who's had such admirable success, and such immense tragedy in one lifetime has been utterly eye opening to me.
I found out that as a successful person, he always was quite humble and loved and respected God. He was always honest in business, had integrity in all of his dealings, and praised God throughout his life as he became more and more wealthy. He had a beautiful respect and love for God that was quite admirable.
I thought for sure that once he was faced with such tragedy that he would curse God, since he had been a faithful person thus far. After the calamity struck, his wife responded in a way that I think would be any normal human response: she DID curse God. I mean really? All of her 10 children? All of her real estate? All of her staff? Everything? and then to top it off her husband having contracted a horribly disgusting disease that she couldn't even hug him? "C'mon God? After we've been so faithful, how could we deserve this? Why us?"
I think her response is quite appropriate. Don't you?
I mean, even I have been struggling with the question: Why me God? That's one of the many normal human responses we have when we go through grief, depression, rejection, and a lot of other emotions.
Her husband, the person I'm getting to know, didn't think so. He didn't think it was even remotely appropriate to curse God. WHAT??!!!! I know! What was he thinking?
This is what he was thinking:
"Shall we indeed accept the good from God and not the adversity?"
Come again.....
"If we happily accept everything that he gives us that's good, shouldn't we also accept everything, I mean EVERYTHING he gives us, even when we think it's bad?"
I thought for a while on this and then I got to know him a little more and realized what his logic was behind thinking this. He understands (and I understand this somewhat now too) that God owns everything. I mean EVERYTHING. He owns our kids, I mean He created them didn't He? He owns our spouse, He owns our home, our car, our job, our clothes, our food, our health...everything.
So for this man, understanding that God owns it all and that it's all just on loan to us from Him, it made complete sense to him that when he received good things from God, since it was all on loan from God, that God could
take it back anytime.
Learning this reality of everything I have including my beautiful children and wonderful husband belonging to God has given me an intense sense of understanding as to why my son Westley is no longer with me.
I never owned Westley, God did. God created him. Westley belongs to God. He has Wesley beside Him in heaven right now and when I get there, I'll be able to see my beautiful son and finally get to know him.
...
ps The man's name is Job, pronounced "Jobe" and you can read about him in the Holy Bible in the section called "Job." I've been getting to know him through a book someone gave me called "When God is Silent, Choosing to Trust in Life's Trials" by Charles R. Swindoll-a must read.
When God is Silent by Charles R. Swindoll - a description
When God is Silent by Charles R. Swindoll- Amazon
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