Acceptance without understanding

You do realize, don’t you, that I write this blog for myself, as a way to work out things in my feeble brain? I’ve been sitting by a fire, talking to God, listening for God, holding my aching head. And crying.  

Once again I am reminded of the need to accept what is, to accept God’s will in my life, even when I have absolutely no understanding of the why. There are so many whys. God must be tired of me. I ask Him why, why He keeps taking away people and things I love. Is it His plan to strip me down to nothing? No response. I ask Him why a certain person in my life (unnamed to protect the clueless) behaves toward me the way he does.  The answer I get is that it’s not about me, I’m not the center of the universe, have compassion. I ask Him why I’m alone, and He doesn’t respond. I ask Him why, when I try so hard, why . . .  Even I get sick of hearing myself whining. 

I know there are Bible verses that address this very question but I’m not in the mood to look them up. My head hurts and reading Scripture makes me cry more. I love the Lord, I believe, I believe. I know that He has it all in control, that everything will make sense eventually. Even the painful things that tear me apart now won’t matter at the end of my life. But when I’m hurting here and now and my patience is running thin, I need to be reminded. It’s one of those times when I want God to come and sit beside me on the couch, in front of the fire, and patiently explain things to me again. Yet again. I’m a slow learner when it comes to the inscrutable ways of God. Sometimes I just need Him to be a bit more scrutable. (Apparently scrutable is not a real word—why not? Just another one of my why questions.)

I know that all things work for the good of those who are called according to His purpose. I don’t have to look up that one—I know it’s in Romans somewhere. Like I said, I’m feeling too lazy, too much of a headache to look it up. I trust that it’s true but it doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with it sometimes. I don’t think God is saying that all things are good. No, not by any stretch of the imagination. Death, disease, war, mayhem, cruelty, and heartbreak suck; they are just part of the whole enchilada called the human condition. God knows that this enchilada sucks (even though He probably would not approve of my language—sorry, Lord). What I need to be reminded of is that those things, those wretched human things that suck, don’t matter in the long run. Where I struggle is seeing past today, seeing past the pain of this flawed humanity to the greater glory of God. In the end, none of it will matter. What matters is that God is God and I’m not, He has a plan, and in the long run, when I’ve slipped out of this mortal coil, I’ll get it. But now, while I’m still in the mortal coil and I don’t get it, I want Him to tell me why.