11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Ecclesiastes 3:11
Just as the words to this song suggest God takes our lives, filled with chaos and brokenness and makes it beautiful, he helps us re-write those tragedies so that something good comes out of it.
One dad, I met on the walk for ALS had such a story.
The dad was pushing his 8-year-old son on his adaptive bike and I complimented the dad on the great job his son was doing peddling the bike. He had a single handle behind the bike and it was obvious to me that he was helping propel the bike forward while his son was using his muscles peddling.
The dad began telling me 'the story'. They were on a cruise enjoying the pool when they lost sight of their son. By the time they found him he had been underwater for 15 minutes and it took 15 more minutes to revive him. They got him to a trauma 1 hospital where he spent many months.The initial prognosis was that their son would never make it out of the hospital.
God had other plans for his life and so he recovered enough to leave the hospital. He was able to live a much different life than the one he had before the near-drowning. On a cognitive level their son experience brain damage that made it hard for him to talk.
He then shared with me the positives to come out of this tragedy. The family was so impacted by the adaptive equipment that their son was benefitting from that they decided to start a foundation to raise funds so that other families can afford that same adaptive equipment.
God makes things beautiful out of the brokenness of our lives.
Every day I see beauty out of brokenness.
A young Grandma got to hold her first grandchild after caring for many months her terminally ill mother-in-law.
Groups of people on the ALS walk uniting to support each other after a loss of a friend from ALS.
Memory markers along the path of the walk to keep the memories of their loved ones alive.
A group of grieving mothers combining forces to strengthen our DUI laws.
God makes all things beautiful.
After tragedy church no longer becomes just a country club filled with people looking to fill their mornings with fellowship. It becomes more like a hospital where those who have been emotionally wounded and marred by tragedy can go to find the hope they need to make all things beautiful again.
Those who have experience tragedy understand what I am talking about. We may not know until later God's redemptive story out of our tragedy, but the stories I have heard recently suggest that he is working on yours.
Until then we just have to trust God that he knows what is good for our lives.
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