A Decision Was Made

Job 13:15 “Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.”

At the very moment of impact, when the police had followed me home to tell me that I would never talk to my son this side of Heaven again because there had been an accident, time stopped. I would not let them give me information, instead walking through my house to my back patio alone. In the moments of hearing and feeling my own breathe and being suspended in time I knew that I had to decide RIGHT THEN to take whatever I was about to hear and let it harden me or soften me. I knew nothing else, but I knew that my world had just changed and I had a decision to make. Where no other rational thought existed, that realization overcame me in what I now understand to be God meeting me on that patio.

Why does God allow things like this to happen? If He loves me, why would He allow this?

Because the world is fallen and broken.

John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Because we all have free will.

Psalm 54:6, “I will freely sacrifice it You; I will praise Your name, O Lord, for it is good.”

Because He sees the bigger picture and knows that after a time ALL of this will be redeemed in a way that I cannot even imagine.

John 13:7, “Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”

Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.”

He hurts when we hurt.

John 11:35, “Jesus wept.”

He collects our tears.

Psalm 56:8, “You number my wandering; Put my tears into a bottle; Are they not in Your book?”

He does not desire for us to struggle so He sent his Spirit so that we would not walk through the valleys alone.

John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your rememberrance all things that I said to you.”

2 Cor. 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father off mercies and God of all comfort.”

To walk away from reliance on God during this time would rob me from leaning hard into Him for peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:6-7), leaving me to rely on what is of this world which is fleeting (2 Cor. 4:18). In that moment I chose to cry out to God, in the darkest moment of my life, that I would be kept soft. My heart cried out for the Lord to not let my heart harden as I prepared to hear the truth of my new reality. Nothing has been easy about that decision, it was only the beginning of the path to healing. Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him.

Prayer:

Lord, we may not understand why things happen the way that they happen but what we do understand is Your love for us. We ask that You would lead us through the next breath, and then the next breath, as we trust You to reveal to us what You want for us to do with the pain and the hard moments that we endure here. We trust You for the joy, Psalm 30:5 says, “ Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” We claim this in our lives and ask that You would continue to lead us to the joy that only comes from a relationship with You. Search our hearts Lord and soften anything that is hard.

Amen

~Chrystal Johnson