A young single mother is anxious and stressed out. She is yelling at her kids to get dressed and ready for school, or else they will miss the bus. She is hurriedly making her children lunches to take to school and she spills mustard on her brand new suit. Her children yell at her that they just saw the bus leave their street. At this point, the young mother is about to break down and cry. She does not understand why everything bad is happening today. She had to stay up late to finish her presentation for work, and now her new suit was ruined, and she was going to be late to work because she had to make sure her children made it to school on time. However, this young mother did not know that later on in the day, the school bus would crash, and everything that went wrong actually saved the lives of her children.
How many times have you felt like this young mother? How many times have you been rushing through life just praying everything goes right, just for everything to go wrong? Why would God let all of these bad things happen? Whenever I feel like this, I like to look back on a short story that I read a couple years ago:
Me (in a tizzy): God, can I ask you something?
GOD: Sure.
Me: Promise you won’t get mad?
GOD: I promise.
Me (frustrated): Why did you let so much stuff happen to me today?
GOD: What do you mean?
Me: Well I woke up late.
GOD: Yes
Me: My car took forever to start.
GOD: Okay.
Me (growling): At lunch, they made my sandwich wrong, and I had to wait.
GOD: Hmmmm.
Me: On the way home, my phone went dead, just as I picked up a call
GOD: All right
Me (loudly): And to top it all off, when I got home, I just wanted to soak my feet in my foot massager and relax, but it wouldn’t work. Nothing went right today! Why did you do that?
GOD: Well let me see….. the death angel was at your bed this morning and I had to send one of the other angels to battle him for your life. I let you sleep through that.
Me (humbled): Oh.
GOD: I didn’t let your car start because there was a drunk driver on your route that might have hit you if you were on the road.
Me (ashamed): …………
GOD: The first person who made your sandwich today was sick and I didn’t want you to catch what they have, I knew you couldn’t afford to miss work.
Me (embarrassed): Oh.
GOD: Your phone went dead because the person that was calling was going to give a false witness about what you said on that call, I didn’t even let you talk to them so you would be covered
Me (softly): I see God.
GOD: Oh and that foot massager, it had a short that was going to throw out all of the power in your house tonight. I didn’t think you wanted to be in the dark.
Me: I’m sorry God.
GOD: Don’t be sorry, just learn to trust me . . . in all things, the good and the bad.
Me: I WILL trust you God.
GOD: And don’t doubt that my plan for your day is always better than your plan.
Me: I won’t God. And let me just tell you God, thank you for everything today.
GOD: You’re welcome child. It was just another day being your God and I love looking after my children.
My mother has always told me that everything happens for reason. However, I never fully believed that until I read this short story. Just like the young mother did not understand why so many bad things happened to her that day, I sometimes do not understand why God would let so many bad things happen in my life. However, we just have to hold onto the faith that everything happens for a reason.
