Smile at Jesus

There is a blog that I read, Diary of a Transplant Patient. Amanda, a christian woman who writes it asked for comments on another blog post. The other blog she referred to was filled with a man's thoughts on how an all powerful God could watch while bad things happen on earth. When Jack was diagnosed and after we were home I thought long and hard trying to reconcile this very thought attached to my son whom I love so. I read Why Bad Things Happen to Good People after someone had recommended it, I know it has been a helpful book for many to read, but it deeply disturbed me. I did not know alot about the man who wrote it, only that he was a Rabbi. The gist of the book was that God created the world and has left us to ourselves to work it all out, he does not believe in Jesus who came down and triumphed over evil, he does not believe that Jesus is anxiously awaiting our prayers so he can interceed on our behalf to God, it was a book with no hope. He said that God was unable to help us, that he was there by our sides to be with us as we walk through life and death, but could do nothing but be our spiritual hand holder. This was my comment to Amanda's blog....

I can remember feeling like this (how can God not interceed to help all the bad stuff on earth) at an early part in my "searching for God, and trying to figure it all out stage." Trying to understand all the bad in this world and making sense of it, at some point I realized, through reading scripture that I can never understand the way things play out on earth, I was not created to understand God. At a workshop this year Rick Atchley spoke on the healing power of God. It was three days long, but the statement I remember the most (not directly quoted) is that we are completely healed when we leave this earth and take that expressway to heaven. Why God heals some and not others is uncomprehendable to me, and that is where I say to myself...let God be God and quit trying to understand the why's and why nots of this world. One of my friends asked me last night how I was doing with my son Jack who is in chemo for his brain tumor, and the subject moved to what if he dies from this, and all I could think was that when we get to heaven and see glory all around us we will have wished we had gotten there sooner. A man was giving me counsel on the subject of the brain tumor his son had, when I asked him if he ever felt "why did this happen to my child?" He said you have to say "why not my child." Because we are christians does not mean that God gives us a life of no trouble just for following Him, if he did everyone would jump on that bandwagon, your true faith and trust in God, is refined by that fire when you are struggling, it is easy to believe and proclaim when things go our way, but when things aren't we start blaming God for his lack of love and concern, or worse if you ask me, by belittling God and His power on earth. It goes back to that quote I posted earlier from Mother Teresa that I love so much
...." And it is true, Jesus can be very demanding also, and it is at those times when he is so demanding that to give him a big smile is very beautiful...."
I choose to smile at God even when he is demanding alot from me in my faith. It is a decision we all must make.