I am feeling challenged this morning to not lose hope!
When I lived in Illinois, I didn’t have a car. One day, I was borrowing my friend’s very nice car. In an unfortunate turn of events, her car was damaged by the neighbor’s carelessness, and it was blamed on me, with her insurance picking up the bill. I was furious! How dare someone get away with doing the wrong thing and then lying about it? I didn’t have money to cover the cost of repairing my friend’s car, and she ended up leaving the damage as-is (a BMW 🤦🏻♀️ ), while the neighbor smugly took their money from her insurance and didn’t even fix the damage they claimed I’d caused. I felt this ache of injustice and insatiable need to defend myself! But I felt powerless to do anything, and simply had to rely on God’s promise to take care of the situation. He says He is the one who hates injustice more than we do and brings the right kind of revenge at the right time. But! A few weeks later, I got a call from this friend who had just been in a car accident. She was just fine, but on her way home someone slid on the ice and rear-ended her in her car. She was angry that she’s now had 2 accidents in such a short time, but I was stuck on a single detail of this accident: The other car’s insurance would be paying to cover the cost of replacing the back end of her car (which included the scratches I didn’t have money to fix from before), as well as a send a settlement for the trouble.
And at work just now, I witnessed the incredible closure of a similar situation of injustice (except that this one went on for years!) that passed through those same phases of anger, disappointment, faith and letting go, and then God showing up above and beyond. Mind blowing!
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that God sees, that He is paying attention, and that He knows exactly what’s going on. There are days when it feels like chaos reigns, selfishness wins, and the person doing the right thing is the “biggest loser”. I know that in our current situation, one thing Mr. Caruso and I struggle with often is discouragement; hopelessness seems to sink in like a poison, clouding our thoughts and robbing us of our perspectives. If God cares, where is He? If God was really able to do something, why have things gotten so bad? If God saw what was going on, why is He taking so long to fix it?
But if God is the same God, regardless of whether it’s a situation of injustice with insurance or with a child, I believe that not only is He invested, aware and capable. I believe that He is plotting an overhaul greater than I can imagine. What if He plans on fixing the proverbial back-end and not just the scraped bumper? What if I’m waiting He was strengthening my faith to not only believe for the allegorical unpaid bills, but for the two raises and promotions that I had no idea were coming my way?
Today I once again choose hope. I won’t get stuck in a mentality of ‘poor me’ or of ‘if only’. I’ll stick with “just maybe…” instead. Not because I have no other options, but because I’ve seen God show up and show out and leave me speechless. I’m going to cling to him for another one of those testimonies. On the edge of my seat. A maybe I’ll start to get the popcorn ready, too.
1 Kings 18 for extra pondering, especially 29 and 38
MyExposedHeart 