Why am I so favoured?

This is the question Elizabeth asked Mary, a young, single, mother-to-be. And this is the question I too should have been asking in all my troubles over the years. Instead, I recited the wrong ones…

  • Why won’t you hurry up, God, and answer my prayers?
  • How can I survive in this intolerable situation?
  • Don’t you care, God?

But God has been helping me redirect my focus – to look for what is good. And that is hard for me to do, for everything in my heart cries out against these injustices, it cries out against the cruel behaviour of others.

So, today, I celebrated my father’s death, for 33 years ago today, he suddenly died. Derek and I shared an ice cream sundae, and rejoiced in the bravery my father had to admit that he had done wrong. We thanked God for the occasions where he stood up against wrong. We agreed that because of his severity, I grew much deeper in faith.

So, I celebrate with Elizabeth for God’s favour in hard times.

A time to see…

Emotions overcome many things, sometimes even the facts. A fact about ourselves is that God “has made everything beautiful in its time.” Yet, we might say, “Dream on. I just took a look in the mirror and, well … Let’s not go there.”

But, if we look deeper, we could see down into our hearts. Sure we might want to hide things, but God has put something profoundly beautiful inside us. “He has also set eternity in the human heart.”

Eternity. A longing for something that lasts. A longing for a relationship that never ends. A dream of never being forgotten, of being remembered and loved. And this is God’s dream for us – him forever relating with our beautiful hearts. Now this is a fact.

Quotes from Ecclesiastes 3:11