Weak To Be Strong

“God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain, but without stain.”

- CS Lewis

Growing up in a conservative, small town in Indiana, my parents kept me pretty sheltered from a lot of the realities of our world. By the time I was in middle school, I was already actively involved in our church and doing everything I thought would make me a ‘good’ Christian. This was my safety net that nothing bad would happen in my life:

We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

- Romans 8:28

When I was in high school, a friend from church was killed on a skateboard, another died of leukemia and shortly after Ken and I married, my 18 year old cousin died suddenly from a rare heart condition. While I began to understand that bad things happen, I still felt that false sense of security that I was immune.

Then in 1992, when we were living in Phoenix, the middle of the night phone call you dread came. My 22-year old sister had just been killed. How could a good God allow that to happen? My thought: God is against me!

Maybe you’ve asked a similar question. How could a good God allow my husband to lose his job, my wife to have an affair, our house to be foreclosed, my teen to get addicted to drugs, or cancer to ravage a body?

After my sister died, it took me some time to even know how to pray. I was so broken.

But the weaker I felt, the stronger I became. It was truly in my weakness that I allowed Jesus to be strong.

Looking back, I see over and over how God worked that loss for good.

RC Sproul wrote: “Romans 8:28 assures the believer that all ‘tragedies’ are ultimately blessings. It does not declare that all things that happen are good in themselves but that in all the things that happen to us God is working in and through them for our good.”

We aren’t always going to understand our circumstances. There are things that we just can’t make sense of. But it’s okay. God sees the bigger picture of our lives. My prayer for you is that, no matter what you’re facing, you stay rooted and established in God’s love. If you do, you’ll be able to grasp how wide and long and high and deep that love is for you.

I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt today that God is FOR ME and FOR YOU. He loves us with unconditional love and ALL things are working together for good in our lives.

Pastor Pam

‍