My husband and I were talking about the emotions we feel about our wayward adopted daughter this morning. We both feel a real absence of sadness that's disconcerting. Maybe it's a coping mechanism or maybe it's years of trying to protect a strong-willed person from their self-destruction who wants all the bad things. She's just smart enough for the state to give her independence, but not smart enough to understand the consequences of her actions. The thing that gets me about the idea of God doing everything for our good is that vulnerable people like our daughter may live years and years and years with addiction or beating their children or whatever. It's terrifying to see videos of zombie people on the streets and think about even 24 hours of it.
I can only imagine how that feels personally, but I agree with you -- it's one of the hardest things to believe that such awful reality could ever be part of God's will. Somehow the knowing that I don't have to understand gives me assurance -- it looks awful, and it doesn't make sense, but I don't have to make sense of it. I think for all of us, if we choose to believe anything at all, we have to get over some pretty big humps of accepting that the higher power we believe in IS the higher power. So hard to do! When I read the book of Job again a few years ago it helped me to understand sovereignty a little more.
My husband and I were talking about the emotions we feel about our wayward adopted daughter this morning. We both feel a real absence of sadness that's disconcerting. Maybe it's a coping mechanism or maybe it's years of trying to protect a strong-willed person from their self-destruction who wants all the bad things. She's just smart enough for the state to give her independence, but not smart enough to understand the consequences of her actions. The thing that gets me about the idea of God doing everything for our good is that vulnerable people like our daughter may live years and years and years with addiction or beating their children or whatever. It's terrifying to see videos of zombie people on the streets and think about even 24 hours of it.
I can only imagine how that feels personally, but I agree with you -- it's one of the hardest things to believe that such awful reality could ever be part of God's will. Somehow the knowing that I don't have to understand gives me assurance -- it looks awful, and it doesn't make sense, but I don't have to make sense of it. I think for all of us, if we choose to believe anything at all, we have to get over some pretty big humps of accepting that the higher power we believe in IS the higher power. So hard to do! When I read the book of Job again a few years ago it helped me to understand sovereignty a little more.
Definitely still in prayer for your family!