So my sister Rachel and I spent a week living life in the same state—drinking early morning coffee, breaking up cousin-sibling spats, sliding in back-yard mud in misty rain, and planning outings—like the trip to the bouncy house, which ended with Isaiah getting his first shiner (head-on collision with another kid’s cheekbone.)
And Uncle E. watched six kiddos so Rachel and I could go out for scones and coffee and browse through West coast antiques. And one night we stayed up till the AM paging through old scrapbooks and doing what family does—remember . . . .
As we paged through old family snapshots of Christmases and birthdays and college graduations, we laughed and remembered the good times, and as one story led to another, we drifted into remembering the not-so-good times, the ones you’d rather forget, but can’t and probably never will.
But we’ve learned—dwelling on the pain of the Past doesn’t bring hope in the Now.
And this is
Amazing Grace---God grows new things in the barren wilderness of trials.
It’s only when
our eyes drift from Him to Self, that we are blinded by cynicism—This family
is so delusional, so messed up, there is no hope—or impatience—Lord, can’t you
heal our family right now?
But when we fix
our eyes on He who can do ANYTHING—we find hope and peace and strength—new things!—in the wilderness of
difficulty.
As Dietrich Bonheoffer
says: “When God imposes a burden, those who are patient bend their hands and believe it is good to be humbled thus .
. . God’s peace is found among the patient
. . . . We lose God’s peace when we prefer an earthly peace with the world
to peace with God, when we love the security of our lives more than we love
God. Then must tribulation become our ruin.”
When we bend our
hearts to the trials in our lives, trusting that God is growing new things in us like peace and patience and humility—then tribulation becomes
blessing.
But when, like Lot ’s wife—we look back at former things, longing for
security and comfort in what we already
know —then tribulation becomes our ruin.
And yes, there
are times Rachel and I wish God would hurry up and heal our family right now!, and we look through
scrapbooks and see our parent’s faces and wonder if we’ll ever hear their
voices again . . .
But we thank God
for the beautiful trial of a broken family—because through this trial God has
grown new things in our hearts: peace that passes all understanding and joy in the Savior-God who loves us and loves our family more than
we can comprehend.
So this morning:
let’s fix our eyes on Him in the midst of life’s difficulties, so he can grow new things in our hearts.
Yes
I will rise
Out
of these ashes rise
From
this trouble I have found
And
this rubble on the ground
I
will rise
Cause He who is in me
Is
greater than I will ever be
And I will rise
By Shawn Macdonald
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