Have hope

Recently my daughter and her husband were struggling to maintain their marriage. Things had been especially bad for the last 10 days and I was feeling bleak, worrying about my grandchildren and my daughter.

One very bad night, I went to bed but was unable to sleep because I was so worried. I tossed and turned. “What was going to happen? How would the children respond? How would they live?” Dark scenarios and accusatory speeches rushed through my mind.

I prayed fitfully, hoping to sleep, but not able to turn my mind off. After 2-3 hours of this, I once again closed my eyes trying to sleep. After a few quiet moments, the most gentle message entered my mind: “It’s all about the learning.”

Like a lost child who suddenly hears her parents’ voice unexpectedly, all my senses jumped to focus on the message. He was right. What happened or how the children would respond was the wrong focus. The right focus was that there was learning ahead.

Learning is the point of all our challenges. My daughter and son-in-law would be learning to get inspiration to communicate better, to sacrifice as needed, to persuade and love each other. I would learn to support each of them, learn to say a word in season, and sacrifice for their best good. God saw their difficulties as their school and He was the schoolmaster.

I was shocked by how comforted I felt. I didn’t have the answer as to what would ultimately occur, but I felt assured that God would use their difficulties to improve them, to strengthen them and to make them more tender. There would be hurdles but these were to be expected. It really was, “all about the learning.”

I fell asleep almost immediately thereafter and woke up feeling comforted that the Lord oversaw them. I couldn’t guess the future, but Someone who did see the future reassured me that His ways were higher than mine and that He could confidently handle their challenges, and even turn those challenges to their good.

Anonymous