What if....

What if God is orchestrating every event of my life? What if he willingly allowed/directed the accident to happen that took Brian's life? What if someday I look back on the event and appreciate the purpose that it served?

Or......


What if 30 years from now I am still as clueless about it as I am now? In other words, what if it remains a mystery? What if the perspective that I have still doesn't provide meaning and purpose to why it happened?

Seems like either way it goes it doesn't erase the element of struggle that I have with my faith. If I say He "caused" it to happen for a greater good then that goes against what I have allowed myself to believe...in light of the loss...I don't want to believe that God "caused" this....that just can't be....at least from my perspective now I see nothing good about my three kids growing up with out their father....nothing good at all....you can't tell me that they won't be negatively impacted by his life being cut short.....they will be impacted....I am doing all I can to minimize the impact and maximize his influence....but there is only so much I can do.....

So....then....if He isn't all that involved and doesn't "orchestrate" everything....then what kind of God is He? What should I expect from Him and how He works? Am I, in fact, responsible for how my life turns out....should I be more "proactive" about rebuilding the kind of life that I believe God would want me to have? Or, do I just "wait and see"....

I seem to be hung up on the issue of how involved God is in our life......there is a lot riding on it for me....

What do I really think and believe? Gosh....I don't know....I really, truly do not know.....I know that I can look back on my life and trace God's hand in every event of my life...the good, the bad and the ugly.....but I also know that I made decisions a lot differently than I do now. I tended to "spiritualize" every decision.....I believed that God told me where to go to college....that God told me to marry Brian....that God told me to move to Florida....that God told me to go to Seminary....etc....etc....but what if He didn't tell me all those things.....maybe I just believed that He did....and because I was earnestly trying to follow Him He continued to bless and open doors for me to fulfill the calling I felt He had on my life...

Maybe I am just over-analyzing it.....but it would sure help me if I could understand the degree of involvment God has in our lives.....Yes, I know that he knows the number of hairs on my head....but, so what? Knowledge I am not debating......I believe He knows all.....I just don't know what exactly He does with that knowledge.....

God is God......I am not........

I don't question God's character....or His presence....or His redemptive power....or His unfailing love....or His abillity to achieve His purposes through every event of our lives....but I do question exactly how he does that.....and what part of this journey is dependent mostly on me and what part is completely beyond my control......

This post seems a little odd....I think it all boils down to the fact that I am beginning to wonder if there will come a time when I am actually grateful that this happened....not saying I will ever say it is a "good" thing.....but, I could actually see now the possibility (although remote) of that happening.....and, no, I am not talking about some knight in shining armor rescuing me and the kids (that's my dad's answer to all my issues).....I am not talking about some fairytale happy ending (although I could be convinced to participate in a happy ending)....I am talking about a point in time where I realize that God's purpose for my life could only be achieved as a result of going through this element of struggle....it is possible that my life will count for something entirely different than if I had never been through the loss of my 35 year old husband....and maybe...just maybe....I am not completely convinced yet....I will have the opportunity to be more of an influence and make more of an impact than if I had stayed happily married to Brian and blissfully unaware of the pain and sorrow that came far too soon and far too sudden.....and if that is possible...then it may mean that God is extremely involved in my life.....and I just need to trust Him with the chapters I haven't read yet.....I know the ending will be good.....and for that I am grateful....