Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: BUG (04/06/17)
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TITLE: God is God | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sylvia Young
04/12/17 -
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Jonathan looked down at his wife, helpless to respond. In his ministry, he'd comforted many such women, ones who'd lost their children, but he couldn't find the words to say to his beloved wife. They'd waited so long to have children, and then, when their hope had finally been realized, they'd spend weeks and months praising God for the life that was growing within her. The nursery was ready, filled with color and light, ready for their long-awaited son.
“Why don't you answer me?” Laura accused, her eyes filling with angry tears. “You've served Him long enough, given him your every waking hour, and now? Where is your reward?”
His years of training, education and knowledge slipped away in a moment, and words meant to reassure froze on his tongue. Every promise of God seemed cliche now, empty and useless.
When he didn't answer her, she curled up into a ball, her lifeless son tucked close. Her sobbing broke his heart, and he was helpless to do anything except cry out to the One who seemed to have forsaken them. He turned from her and gazed out at the window to the see the sunlight that seemed to mock their sorrow. His lips formed the word, “Why?” although he didn't utter a sound.
On the legs of a drunkard, he stumbled out the door and into the daylight. It warmed his face, but not his heart. Cold shock washed over him, and he fell to his knees on the gravel walkway in front of the hospital. The outdoor garden was meant to be a sanctuary for the broken, but the deep green of the leaves seemed gray to him. The blossoming flowers blurred together like a melted rainbow, and the only thing he could feel was the hole in his chest growing larger.
“Why, Lord?” he cried out now, the word bouncing off the walls of the concrete walls covered in ivy.
The tears flowed freely, but he made no move to stem them. Instead, he looked up at the mostly blue sky, his eyes stinging with the brilliant light of the sun. The vastness of the sky seemed to swallow him whole, and he sank to his knees, opening up his heart and waiting for an answer.
Only one came. “I am God, and you are not.”
He stared out blindly at the gurgling water fountain that reflected the light. It was too bright. Looking down, he saw an ant appear from between the cracks in the stones. Without thinking, he crushed the tiny insect under the heel of his boot, wanting to do harm to something in an effort to relieve his suffering.
But no relief came. Instead, he looked at the ant that he'd cruelly destroyed, a creature that had no idea what the next day would bring, and felt pity instead...and understanding.
“I am the ant,” he whispered, his mind reeling. “My life is in Your gift.”
But unlike humans, God didn't seek to cripple him with hardship, but to shape him, to burn away the chaff until there was nothing left but a heart for God, one that would seek to do His will.
Peace didn't come right away. Assurance didn't wash over him like a tidal wave, and yet he knew. God's will would be done, and he wouldn't always know why. God's mind was not like his. He was a mere insect in comparison, tiny and helpless, alive only by the grace and mercy of his Creator.
His heart had been broken split open for a reason. He didn't know what that might be, but he would trust.
Because God is God.
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A couple at church just had a stillborn child. It has been a huge heartache for the whole family.