Have you ever had something bad happen to you and think "Why me, God?" Twelve years ago I was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy (MD), an incurable disease that gradually deteriorates muscle proteins. I can't begin to tell you how devastating this was for me, and I'm sure for my family, too. I have asked that question, "Why me, God?" a million times over the years. I have never gotten an answer.
Maybe you've had something like that happen to you, too. I don't know about you, but for a long time it was pretty hard for me to swallow the fact that I was supposed to trust God, and believe that He could use an awful disease like MD for good. I wasted a lot of time being angry at God for allowing such an awful thing to happen to me. He's supposedly loves me, right? Right. I believe that now, but it took years for me to understand that He never promised bad things wouldn't happen. Jesus says in John 16:33 “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world”. Jesus never said we would be spared heartache just because we belong to Him. He only promised to see us through.
Maybe if you hadn't gotten pulled over when you were already running late for work you would have made it farther down the road only to be in a terrible car accident. Maybe you got laid off from your job, and God used that time to build your faith and trust in Him and later blessed you with an even better job. Maybe you totaled your only car, and then a perfect stranger comes along and gives you a brand new car because God told them to. (Just for future reference God, if this were to happen to me I'll take a new Lincoln MKX!) Maybe I got sick because it put me on a different path, allowing me to connect with people and with God in a way that wouldn't have been possible had I been healthy.
We don't see the big picture. We see only a small piece of the puzzle. That's why we have to trust God. “Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” - 1 Cor 13:12. I like to think that when I get to Heaven I will sit at God's feet, and He will finally tell me why. Then the angels will sing, and no longer hindered by a broken body, I will dance with Jesus.
