Nothing is wasted.

Nothing is wasted.

The hurt that broke your heart … will tell you hope's a lie, but what if every tear you cry will seed the ground where joy will grow … It's from the deepest wounds that beauty finds a place to bloom, and you will see, before the end, that every broken piece is gathered in the heart of Jesus, and what's lost will be found again.  

When hope is more than you can bear, and it’s too hard to believe it could be true, and your strength fails you halfway there, just lean on me and I’ll believe for you. And in time, you will believe it too.

Sometimes we are waiting in the sorrow we have tasted, but joy will replace it. And nothing is wasted, nothing is wasted, in the hands of our Redeemer, nothing is wasted. ~Jason Gray

A random tornado occurs that drowns children and rips everything away from so many families, a random boy accidentally shoots and kills his sister. A woman learns life-changing news that makes her angry with God. I would be angry with God, too.

Even believers struggle with why bad things happen. We look to God, needing somewhere to place blame, someone to hold accountable.  Our compassion and love for humanity, which is a gift of the spirit of Christ that is in us (Gal. 5:22), makes it difficult to comprehend the pain and suffering of our fellow man.

³ More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.  ~Romans 5:3-5

I think it is okay to be angry with God, he knows our hearts. He wants our honesty. He uses our fresh, raw brokenness, our confusion; our aching hearts that scream WHY? I think He will take it all as long as we are looking to him for answers.  He says to seek his face with all our hearts and we will find him (Jeremiah 29:13).  I posit that we will never seek his face as hard as when we demand an accounting for some unfair circumstance. And he WILL answer.

When we come to him in our anguish, remember that God knows our suffering because he experienced it firsthand. He put on flesh and endured every ugly thing that we could possibly throw at him.

 

It gives me comfort to imagine the angel army mentioned in Isaiah. Our perfect Creator wants an awesome and powerful army. Without brokenness there is no healing process. It is in the healing that we are perfected for his glory. The trials of others move us to act in love and provision for one another. Our heavenly Father gives us hope and love and light and peace in our darkness to sustain us that we might draw nearer to Him in faith. 

God is not the author of our trails; he is the antithesis of them. He is the end goal, the prize. God is what we are seeking; he is the completion, the ultimate and eternal fulfillment.  We can trust that he works all things together for good for those who love Him. (Romans 8:28) Every bad day, every tragedy, every incomprehensible circumstance will mold us into the perfect creature He will use for his glory for all eternity.