When Life Isn't Easy and "That Part"

I have to be honest with you...the past few days have not been good for me. I am feeling depressed and defeated and angry.  Most of my anger has been directed at God and what I perceive as the "it's not fair" situation we are in.

While I typically try and talk myself into believing that everything will be ok, I had stopped doing that and had fully embraced the negative.

It is ugly and it isn't a place I can stay.

I think that it is normal to be angry with God in difficult situations. If you believe in the God I do you may also believe that He has the power to change a circumstance. I believe that God can heal cancer or other terminal illnesses, I believe that He could provide the perfect job for me, I believe he could stop earthquakes and tornados from happening....insert any tradgedy here and I believe that God could stop it.

I believe God has all power....but just because He has the power to change things doesn't mean that he does.

And that is difficult for me to understand right now.

It is that question that I think believers ask time and time again...why do bad things happen to good people? And when they do what should our response be??

Well my response the past couple of days has been sinful. In my anger with God I have cursed His name, said that I was "done with all of it" and not been a good example of living out faith in front of my kids.

Because it is easy to have faith and talk the talk when life is good. But it is MUCH harder to really live it out when things are bad.

Dominic and I were talking last night and I said "For once, I just want it to be easy"..."just once I want our dream(whatever that is) to fall in our laps without having to try so hard to get there, I want to not worry about tomorrow...I just want it to be easy."

And Dominic said "Maybe it isn't about life being easy...but it is about being able to walk through the difficulities with grace." "That is how we need to live out our faith, to be an example to others of the grace that was already given freely to us."

How easily I forget that part of God's story....

You know that part when God sent His only Son to live on earth...to experience all the trials, temptations and difficulities that we experience, and then to suffer an unimaginable death on a cross so that we have a way to life everlasting with Him for eternity.

 That part that I blocked out when I was stomping my feet in anger about what God was allowing to happen to our family again.

That part that I wouldn't consider when I was telling God that I was giving up on Him. That I didn't believe He wanted good for me and my family.

That part....

Romans 5:1-8

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

⁶ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow or the next day. And truth be told I am convinced that things for us are going to get worse before they get better.  I don't mean to be a downer here but I just think that we live in a sinful world and bad things happen all around us and to us. And just because we believe in God and are working at being faithful doesn't mean we are exempt from these things.

 And so I don't hold hope in the things of this world but only in the hope of Heaven.  I will do my best to continue to trust in God during my time here and be an example of living faithfully during that time. And I will work at being an example of grace because so much more has already been given to me.