As I was driving home from my daughter's therapy appointment yesterday, one of our favorite songs came on the radio. We both love to sing to Christian songs and my five year old quickly began belting out the lyrics to "Look up Child" by #LaurenDaigle - if you don't know who she is, go Google her now....like right now. She is an amazing #Christian singer and her songs resonate with me in so many ways. As we were driving down the long stretch of road to our quiet abode in the country, the words of this particular song seemed to jump out at me more than normal. "Where are you now....when darkness seems to win; Where are you now...when all I feel is doubt". I smiled, partly because my daughter wanted me to sing louder with her, but also because I knew that God was speaking to me yesterday.
My mom doesn't believe in coincidence - she has always told me, "there is no coincidence....what seems like a coincidence is a God window". When i stop to think about it, I have to admit (like I have many times before) that my mom is right. As I have grown older and stronger in my faith and closer in my relationship to God I have admitted often times that coincidence does not exist. Is it a coincidence that this particular song came on yesterday? That the blog entry on #TheDailyGrace was entitled "Where is God when my life doesn't go as planned"? That all the Instagram posts today seemed to be about putting #trust in God during difficult times? If I wasn't a person of faith, I could probably say, yes...its just a coincidence or that I am just seeing what I want to see because it fits with my life right now. However, as a woman of great faith; a woman who has felt God's presence, felt his hand on my shoulder in the very recent past, who has heard him whisper to me when I have asked for help, I can say with certainty that what some consider a mere fortunate alignment of moving parts is, without a doubt, an opportunity for God to touch my life.
It was not long ago that I was asking God where he was - why had he led me in a direction that ultimately was going nowhere. Why was I having to suffer through some very, very challenging and difficult times. And this was not the first time I had questioned where he was. My relationship with God was rocky to say the least during my early years - I was raised in a family that attended church every Sunday. My mother was involved in church groups and preschools - she was the most religious of us and was quick to verbalize her faith and opinion. Growing up in a household that was stricter than my friend's homes and with a strong connection to religion, I naturally shied away from church once I was out on my own. I experienced the loss of a friend during high school which was the first time I questioned where God was. In college, I had experiences with disappointment - times where friends let me down, times when relationships fell apart, times when I felt lost and alone. My senior year of college I went through a traumatic event - one which I kept to myself for so long, only recently sharing it with my boyfriend - an event that changed how I viewed myself and men in general. Unfortunately, in today's age these stories are all too common and no longer carry the shock value they once did. On one hand I am thankful that perhaps God protected me on the night of that event - I don't remember much of it, but I remember the feeling the next day - the notion that someone I considered a friend had crossed a line and made a decision for me when I could not. For a long time I stuffed that memory away - and I questioned God, again.
I stayed away from God for a long time - I went to church during my vet school years but I didn't really know God or listen to his word. I didn't feel the presence of any type of Spirit within or around me. When I met my first husband, I began to go to church with him but again, I was never moved by anything we experienced. I knew God, I knew the stories in the Bible, I knew what Jesus had done for us - but it didn't move me. It didn't speak to me. I had no connection to it.
Somewhere along the way things got tough - tough between me and my husband and then my next husband. Tough at work. Tough with family. Tough within myself. Often people can remember exactly the moment they felt God move within them and speak to them. Baptists refer to this as 'being saved'. I like to think I was always saved but about 5 1/2 years ago God really spoke to me. I found myself in another tough situation - one in which I questioned how God could let this happen to me. As I have learned, God doesn't allow anything to happen to us - he allows it to happen FOR us.
I have searched for God many times in the past 5 1/2 years during tough times - more tough times than I ever thought I would endure - times of divorce, pain, struggle, frustration, depression, suicidal thoughts, loneliness.....and everytime I have searched for him, he has been there. It has just been up to me to listen to him - to reach for him, to seek him. Too often I have tried to solve the problem myself - like I tried in my college years - I tried to solve problems and take control - whether that was by putting on a happy face, by numbing my trauma, my emotions through alcohol, or by laughing about it and saying 'its ok'. Or by blaming God - because let's be honest, I tried to blame him A LOT.
We sometimes have to go through the toughest times, the darkest hours, the seemingly impossible times when we ask "where are you now" to realize that He is here, during good and bad times. I have not always understood the trials I have gone through, or why I was going through them, but every single experience has made sense after the fact. It just takes faith to get through the tough times, faith that He has a plan for me - faith enough to stop questioning it and say, "God I am going to #trust in you".
"If because of conscience toward God, one endures grief, suffering wrongfully" 1Peter 2:19.
