Have you ever wondered why bad things happen to good people? Specifically, why do bad things happen to me?
Welcome to my life. At age 45, I was a solid Christian living a solid, if slightly boring, Christian life. I had been married to a man who loved me for 25 years. I went to church almost every week, ran a small business, came home every night and made dinner.
The Crash of a Perfect Life
There were a couple of flies in the ointment as they say. Our finances were a mess. The business was only marginally surviving. And then there was my husband’s health. When I married him at age 19, I was aware that there was a disease in his bloodline that had a 50% chance of hitting him. I loved him, so I married him anyway.
Well that 50% went against us, and Bill was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. I don’t need to describe it much for this article, but the end result was he could no longer work. His income was cut in less than half.
Meanwhile, my Mom passed away from cancer. My son and his wife were divorced (no kids fortunately). My number one client for the business dropped the project due to their own internal issues.
Oh, and there was this economic collapse that made our house worth much less than we had paid for it.
All of that within about a two years. Could it get any worse?
Unanswered Prayer
I did what any good Christian would do. I prayed for help. My prayers bounced off the wall and nothing happened.
Was God mad at me? Maybe I was not faithful enough? Obedient enough? Didn’t God promise to get me out of trouble? Forty-five years as a Christian and what did it get me?
So this is what we did. We sold the house in a short-sale. We bought a small used motorhome that ran fine but was pretty rough, and we drove away. The plan was to travel around the country for a few months and then find a place to rent and get our lives back together. The vagabond nature of the traveling matched the wandering of my soul. How could such a calamity happen to “good” people?
A Time to Wander
We travelled for eight years. Bill and I loved the beauty of the mountains and the rivers. We are history buffs, so we stopped for battlefields and forts, factory tours and historic towns. It was truly the trip of a lifetime.
But here is what I really gained from that time of wandering. It felt like I had lost everything. My home was gone. My “stuff” was gone. My career and my business were gone. Do you notice the word “my” in all of that?
Over that eight year period, God slowly turned my heart around. All of my focus was on the loss. I was angry with God. I felt abandoned. In my frustration, I settled into a determined effort to just survive, and care for my husband, trying to bring some fun into his slowly diminishing world.
But God is patient, and He has a plan. It took almost two years before I picked up a Bible again. My heart was empty but God kept drawing me back to himself. Slowly, slowly I started hearing His voice to me. “No child, I am not angry with you. I have not abandoned you. Even now I am protecting and providing for you. You are my precious child.”
Just writing this, I am starting to cry.
It took another six years before we decided that we had wandered long enough. I was back in the Word, back in prayer, back in worship. And this time I was much less distracted.
The things that God took away, the home and the business and the stuff, were things that were too important to me. I was hanging on to them and trusting them to fill me up. And they did fill me up, but there was no room for God.
And a Time for Joy
By emptying my life of those distractions, God created space for Himself. That is how He works. He will not compete with all of the things that clutter up our lives and our loyalties. He loved me enough to prune away the parts of my life that blocked the flow of Himself in my heart.
So that is my story. I am betting it is your story too. Or maybe it will be your story in the future. Don’t resist it. Anger with God will not help. If you find yourself going through the fire, just know that God is absolutely in control. He might allow great loss in your life. But what you gain is the precious jewel of His active joy in your heart.
My prayer is that my little story will encourage you. There is no promise that you get all those things back. But what you will get is Jesus. And Jesus is all you need.
