Divine Intervention

I ran into an old friend the other day, I haven't really talked with her since our children were very young.  She was telling me about her life, it hasn't been easy, two of her sons have autism. Believe me she has struggled.  These sons are young men now and life is still hard for them, for my friend and her husband as well.  In some ways harder, but, she said to me "Judy, it hasn't been all bad, not all of it has been hard, there has been beauty from these ashes."

I loved hearing that, hearing that she has the hope of faith, this gift to receive the beauty even in struggles.

Another friend of mine has been legally blind for pretty much half her life, she said she wouldn't trade anything about how her life has turned out. There have been so many blessings.

And a young friend of mine who has a brain tumor, over the last 5 years has had several surgeries and set backs but right now is doing okay, her tumor has stopped growing and part of it is shrinking. She still has hard days, but she told her mother that 'this tumor' has been her greatest gift.

I have seen beauty in the ashes that have interrupted my life, but I would trade them.  In a minute I would trade them.  If God had given me a choice I would have asked for a different way... I did ask for a different way.

If He came right now and asked me if I would trade, I would say yes, in a heart beat...if we could still have the grace.

Apart from the grace, I cannot say that my loss and my suffering from it, has been a gift, not at all, at least not for me.  This isn't my gift to wish differently.  John might see it as a gift, this grace of salvation and the afterlife he is part of.  He might very well say "this is the greatest gift!"  "I wouldn't trade this for anything!"  I would love hearing that, I do feel it, I am sure of it! But, I can't say losing John has been a gift, not for my children or their children and not for me.

My life and my best laid plans have been interrupted...

Well, truly, I don't see it quite that way.  I tend to believe as CS Lewis did, he said...

"The great thing is, if one can, is

to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's life. 

The truth is of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life."

So, this is precisely my life.

I am reading a book right now called 'Life Interrupted' by Priscilla Shirer, she says not to see interruptions as problems to your plans, but to see them as 'divine interventions'. She says, "In one way or another, your story has developed an unexpected plot twist or two. Or ten. Your plans have been interrupted and things haven't been the same since.  You've been changed forever by this 'divine intervention'. Complete satisfaction and success in life cannot be reached apart from your deliberate decision to engage in the divine intervention and to surrender to His sovereign plans for you, whatever He chooses those plans to be."

Yes, this is precisely my life, it has not been interrupted it has been changed by divine intervention and that is a gift, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Divine intervention...I love that.