For Everything There Is a Season

I hope you all had a lovely Easter. 

I wish I could have pulled together a post especially for this weekend, but with all of the family festivities this weekend time seemed to slip by. 

We had a lovely weekend celebrating it with family and friends and hope you did, too! 

However, I will mention this Easter weekend for me came with a heavy heart. Rather then a time of joy, I found myself struggling with the need for answers and the feeling of a thick oppression over me. Sadly in our home when these questions come up, they are often backed up with so much emotion that my hubby and I almost always end up in a heated argument... one that is almost always completely avoidable. All that to say, it was a harder weekend then most. 

On a weekend that is meant for remembrance of an incredible God who sent His one and only Son to die on the cross for all of us, I found myself angry and questioning God once again for the pain and suffering so many people go through. For years, I never struggled with this anger. 

Over the years though, as I have grown more and more aware of the world around me rather then just me and my life, my heart breaks ever so quickly. People's stories of loss hit so much deeper then they ever have. I am a sensitive spirit this way; I have a great desire to see fairness in our world and yet our world is the least fair place. I struggle when injustice is done, and I have such a hard time just giving it up to God as I should and trusting He is the one to judge and will rightly do so. Instead, my heart hurts so quickly, and I find myself angry.

I felt it the most after I had my baby boy last April. Something happened; something changed. My heart broke even more than it ever had for babies/children all over the world who are sick, hurting, in unjust circumstances, or are orphans. 

I am not sure if anyone has seen it yet, but my husband brought up the idea of watching the movie "Dropbox" this weekend. A perfect weekend to deliberately spend time watching the miracles/good God is doing in the world. As much as I have wanted to watch this movie, I instantly shouted "no" at the idea. Everything inside me struggled to want to spend yet another evening saddened (instead of happy) by the very idea of little babies/children everywhere without their mamas caring for them. 

The truth is there is good going on even in the bad. A truth I struggle to make sense of. God said it in His very word: "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Romans 8:28 NLT.

 In all of the anger I struggle with, there is a decision I have to make. A decision to trust that God has a plan for absolutely everyone, no matter how short or long, or how hard or easy, their time on earth is. God is chipping away at all of us, molding us into the people he has called us to be. In all of the pain, struggles, grief, and confusion I feel at times, I personally have to choose whether I will abandon the very God who gave up his Son for me, or choose to trust Him that through it all He has a plan, one I may never understand, one that may ALWAYS seem unfair during my time on earth. But it is one plan that I know and believe will have a unimaginable, wondrous, everlasting, eternal end as long as I choose to trust.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing." Ecclesiastics: 3:1-22 ESV

Julie