"Why is God so good to us?" may have been just about the most beautiful thing I've heard said in a long time. Those were the words spoken to me by the sweet girl last night as we hugged each other before bedtime. They sort of burst from her spontaneously and left me standing there almost limp with joy. (Okay, yes, I was very tired, but the joy was real too!)
My dear thirteen year old daughter has struggled a lot over the goodness of God in the past couple of years, especially with the big questions like "how is God good when there's so much suffering?" To hear her so joyfully affirm her sense of his goodness at the end of what has undoubtedly been the hardest week and a half of her life makes me so grateful.
These days really have been hard....very hard. My sudden swoop into serious illness, the uncertainty and anxiety we're all living under as we await more news on my diagnosis, the way the world felt like it turned upside down as I had doctor appointments, surgery, and have been having to put the brakes on almost everything "normal" in our life routine so that I can rest and heal -- all of this has been hard. It would be hard for any family and any thirteen year old. The fact that many of the challenges tap the sweet girl's most challenging places of anxiety has sometimes felt like another rushing and scary part of this whole tsunami.
And yet....
She is feeling and sensing and KNOWING the goodness of God. As I am. As are we all.
And she is feeling and sensing and knowing God's goodness through God's people. Her question last night: "why is God so good to us?" came on the heels of other exclamations: "I love people. I love God!" And I knew exactly what she meant. I do too, and I especially love how God loves us THROUGH his people. It's astounding.
Why is God so good to us? Because he loves us, and because that's who he is.
In other good news today...
I had a very broken night's sleep, and finally got some good, healing sleep in the later part of the morning, after taking more pain medication.
When I woke up around 8, I reached for my water (doing a good job of staying hydrated) and my groggy mind started the phrase "this is the day...." I think what my brain was going for was "this is the day you might hear from the oncologist."
But the long engrained habit of Scripture reading and memorization took over. My heart and mind interrupted with the words "....that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it."
Can I just say how deeply, deeply thankful I am for all the words of God that I've tucked away over the years? Beginning at the kitchen table with my own dear Mama and dancing through these last years when I've sung and repeated and taught and rehearsed so many words from the Scriptures with the sweet girl. They are there now, like a treasure house, ready to draw on. Or like a spring welling up inside me and bursting out when I don't even expect it.
Holding onto lots of truth today: that God is good, that he loves us so, that he made this day, that we can rejoice in it. No matter what.
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