Not "why?" but "what now?"

I am an emotional person but usually in public I manage to cry in a civilised fashion with just a couple of tear marks on my cheeks. Not so back in February. I lost all composure and frankly didn’t have the capacity to care about what on earth the people on my packed train were thinking. I was ‘proper balling it’ as they say in Essex, with extra noise, blubbering and undignified sniffing.

I had just received a call from the hospital asking me to gather the family together for a meeting with the consultant to hear a diagnosis for mum. At this point she had been in hospital for 4 weeks with a visiting ban in place and all the nurse had revealed to me on the phone was an acknowledgement that it was ‘serious’. Despite actually having no idea what was really wrong and how much I could have been blowing it all out of proportion, it hurt lots! I reasoned that maybe our family’s bar of what is ‘serious’ had been set quite high since Dad and maybe I was just thinking worst case scenario?

When my fears were confirmed I was really angry all of a sudden. Why did you have to prove my fears right God? For the first time in my life I want to be proven wrong! Why would you allow this to happen to us twice? I can cope with one parent with cancer but two – really!?

After a few weeks of feeling completely overwhelmed I began slowly to look beyond my immediate circumstances and realise the world around me again. I began to think that maybe “Why?” was the wrong question for me to be asking.

I don’t ask God why I was born into a loving family, why my health has been ok so far or why I was born in the rich West with a roof over my head and money, not just for food, but for all kinds of luxuries. No - it seems to be just the bad times when we may ask this question. Had I been acting as if I have some kind of inherent right that things should go well and that my life plan should go the way my culture tells me it should? What about the family in Pakistan who are cut off from aid, whose children are now open to all kinds of disease from flood waters, and their home has been swept away?

Life just isn’t about rights or what we deserve or don’t deserve. Grace is above all that.

To manage to look beyond difficult circumstances is very hard to do when storms come. Battening down the hatches and waiting it out seems like the only option. However, lifting our head and looking outwards puts things in perspective even if it risks danger or pain. It enables us to continue living life again and being grateful for what we have. So, we have a chance to shift focus to asking the question “what now?”

How will we respond when troubles come? When the cares of life are overwhelming and our heart is sinking down will we fix our eyes on the hope of glory, on the one who can provide peace beyond our understanding?

I’m still working out my personal response as time moves on and sometimes it is a long learning process but I really don’t want to end up bitter or holding on to my wounds.

God doesn’t reveal his grand design for life or His ultimate purposes to us - but he does reveal Himself and ‘I like’!