All Things?

Once a pastor was visiting his sister’s family when a bad snowstorm stuck. For days they were stranded until finally they all showed signs of hypothermia and the two youngest children went to sleep for the last time. The father was in denial of their situation and tried to look on the bright side and ignore the looming truth. The eldest son had a mental breakdown and sat rocking back and forth muttering the Lord’s Prayer under his breath and completely disconnected from reality. The mother and the pastor then got into a debate, the pastor said that, in the long run, no matter what happened to them it would be a good thing because God works everything together for good. The mother disagreed arguing that the deaths of three children could never be good and even if God had a plan, they were to suffer a cruel fate.

When they arrived at the kingdom of Heaven the two little children were greeted by God first, their innocence and purity shining like stars and they laughed and ran off to play. God greeted the elder brother next, taking away the anxiety that had plagued him since birth and revealing the brave young man he had always been. Next, God greeted the father, who wept and God whipped his tears away and showed him how he had lived the life of a righteous man who never stopped having hope. The pastor was next and he fell before God, knowing all his unworthiness and all those whom his ministry hadn’t reached, but in his love, God showed him all the souls that he had saved through his lifetime of service and all those who would yet still join them in paradise due to his efforts.

Lastly, the mother stood all alone having seen her family enter. “Why am I here?” She asked, “When push came to shove, I doubted You. I doubted in Your plan, and I doubted in how You make all things good.”

“Beloved,” God replied, “My own Son, who I love, doubted that I was with Him on the cross. You asked how the deaths of your children could be good, it was not good, it was a tragedy. But I will turn that tragedy into a miracle to soften the hard heart of your mother, so that she too will one day enter into my kingdom. Doubt doesn’t mean you don’t love Me, it means you’re human.”

My youngest daughter recently had a dream that served as the inspiration for this story. As my youngest daughter wrote this, she is suffering from a disease that makes her life miserable and has for years and is also has gotten worse. She lives at home with her mother and me and is unable to keep a job and often unable to get out of the house. She often wonders in the middle of the worst times of this disease if it would have been better if she hadn't been born. I am sharing this to let you know this wasn't written by a person who is just sitting behind a desk with perfect health and a well-paid job, it wasn't.