by Mary C Neal
Of course, as every mom and dad knows, sometimes our children just don’t embrace our plan for their lives. Sometimes they take detour after detour, creating pain and discord for others and themselves. Still, we never stop loving them, do we? We never stop looking for ways to nudge them back onto healthier paths.
I think God parents us like this. Although heaven’s desire for us is one of prosperity, safety, and hope, God does not make it happen regardless of our choices. He made that clear in the Garden of Eden—no matter what His plan is, time after time He lets us be partners with Him in what happens in the world and in our own lives. We are blessed with free will, but that allows us to veer off course, just as our own children are able to veer off course.
My point is that you and I are capable of creating our own challenges and struggles outside of God’s vision for our lives. Yet God in His profound wisdom continually intervenes to point a way back home. Sometimes his presence is as gentle as a familiar tune.
Not long ago, Henry told me his story. He had abused alcohol, drugs, and people and had spent time in jail. Shortly after his release, he boarded a bus for his hometown, as his mother had died. She was his last living relative and, he believed, the only person who had ever loved him. As he sat on the bus, he hoped that no one would sit next to him, since he was lost in his own thoughts about his mother and his childhood. His mother had been a godly woman who tucked him in each night with a prayer and a rendition of “Jesus Loves Me,” substituting in Henry’s name. He was unhappy when a man sat in the seat next to him, and Henry turned toward the window. The man began to softly hum a song that brought Henry to tears—it was the tune of “Jesus Loves Me.”
Henry’s life was changed that day by a stranger Henry believes was pointing the way back to God. Henry has been clean and sober now for more than ten years. These days, he helps others recovering from substance abuse.
Look at Henry’s story from heaven’s perspective and you’ll see an important insight shining through. First, God’s plan for Henry didn’t fail. For whatever reason, Henry couldn’t stay the course. Second, even when “bad things” of our own making overtake us, we are never too lost to be reached by God’s love. And here’s where the beautiful power of redemption is most likely to show up. With every struggle or failure comes a priceless opportunity for us to seek God, experience His presence, and grow in intimacy, faith, and trust.
When words fail, I use mental images. Here are three that try to capture some of the mystery and scope of God’s loving plan for our lives, even when bad things happen to good people.
1. GOD’S PLAN IS LIKE A RIVER
Because I love rivers, sometimes I compare God’s plan for us to the experience of kayaking down a long and diverse river. There will inevitably be turns, waves, and obstacles. Sometimes we’ll be swept up by violent currents. We may even be swept onto rocks or over waterfalls. Yet during these most challenging stretches, our physical and mental skills will flourish as we learn to negotiate the challenges.
At other times, we’ll find ourselves drifting through peaceful waters. During these stretches, we’ll face not a single hardship. We can simply float, enjoying the warmth of the sun, passing the time enjoying the scenery, and watching for birds, fish, and other wildlife.
For every mile of the river, our choices will directly influence our enjoyment of the journey. How we navigate a difficult part of this river can lead to satisfaction and fun, or misery and injury. We get to choose. Fortunately, even when we make poor choices, the current never ceases pulling us onward, carrying us toward our destination.
2. GOD’S PLAN IS LIKE A COWRITTEN BOOK
Another way of understanding God’s plan in our lives is to liken it to an exhilarating but incomplete book. It has a beginning and an ending. It has a title, an introduction, and many chapter headings, but throughout, empty pages remain for us to write.
Everyone born will someday die, just as a book has a first chapter and a last. But I do not believe the details of our passage through life are all predetermined. If they were, it would defeat the very purpose of our soul’s journey on Earth. We would have no responsibility for our choices and actions, and we would have no opportunity to develop greater love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, compassion, and humility. Without being able to grow spiritually, or help others do so, what would be the point of an earthly journey?
Paul suggests that we have a role to play in the greater destinies planned for us by God: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10, English Standard Version). Notice that he uses the word should, not will. Don’t miss the “blank pages” in Paul’s description! What God has prepared is still left to you and me to live out.
As our choices, actions, and responses to challenges begin to fill in the pages of our personal biography, each chapter comes to life. When we experience loss, the words we write for a season may be sorrowful or bitter. When we experience love, our words are likely to jump off the pages with excitement and passion.
The book belongs to God, but what ends up on the pages depends on us.
3. GOD’S PLAN IS LIKE A HANDWOVEN RUG
It’s one thing to say that we get to participate in God’s plan for our lives, but what if we make a mistake? What happens then? Are we derailed from ever experiencing the fullness of God’s Plan A for our lives? Are we forever doomed to live out Plan B (or C or D)?
This brings us to my third image of God’s personal plan for us. In the traditional process of making a Persian rug in Persia, the rug is put up vertically on a frame and little boys, sitting on planks at various levels, work on the wrong side of it. The artist stands on the right side of the rug—the beautiful side that will be seen and used by all. The artist shouts his instructions to the boys on the other side, but sometimes a boy will make a mistake in the rug. Quite often, the artist does not make the little boy take out the wrong color; if he is a great enough artist, he weaves the mistake into the pattern and the mistake enriches and becomes integral to the finished rug.2
To me, the little scene of a weaver and a boy at work beautifully captures God’s ability to transform mistakes and tragedies into a work of great art. It describes how God works in good and bad and addresses the problem of errors, failures, and even tragedies—whether of our own making, or by outside forces.
The year after my son was killed, I was skiing in the backcountry when I fell and broke my ankle. For several hours, I had to painfully ski myself back to our car. My ankle required surgical stabilization and kept me out of work. God didn’t entice me into the backcountry or cause me to break my ankle, but He was certainly able to turn my mistake into a beautiful gift—breaking my ankle directly led to my meeting Father Ubald, a Rwandan priest whose presence in our home helped dissolve the deep feeling of despair that permeated my family after the loss of our son.
Our Creator God is always at work in the fabric of our lives, weaving the details—whether lovely or ugly, carefully crafted or unwanted outcomes—into a wondrous creation, one where a beauty we could never imagine is the end result.
WHEN “BAD THINGS” BECOME “GOOD”
The overarching truth is that life confronts us with many daunting situations, many of which are later revealed to be blessings in disguise. Let me share some stories that I think you’ll find encouraging.
Angie is grateful for the blessing of preparation she received, although she didn’t appreciate it at the time. She told me:
“I had a near drowning when I went whitewater rafting while visiting my son in New Zealand. I experienced the most incredible state of peace while I was sitting cross-legged on the bottom of the river and being held there by the pounding falls we had just gone over. I wasn’t even afraid. To make a long story short, my son drowned on the same river approximately one week later. Although I was initially flooded with agonizing thoughts about how my son must ha
ve suffered, God immediately brought comfort to me by reminding me of the peace and comfort that I had felt during my own near-drowning experience.”
My friend Jessica had lived a charmed life. She had a delightful childhood, an easy time at school, and many close friendships. She completed her undergraduate degree in three years and had been accepted into a postgraduate program when things seemed to veer off course. Within a month her beloved grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, and the summer job she had lined up was abruptly given to someone else. Jessica, who had always carefully planned her future, couldn’t believe how her life seemed to be spiraling out of control.
But there was more to come. The son of a family friend had been visiting her family when he fell, breaking his leg in several places. Because he would not be able to travel for several weeks, Jessica’s mother insisted she come home to care for the young man. As you can understand, Jessica arrived home filled with resentment at what she felt was a continuing disintegration of her plans. Then events took a turn.
Over the coming weeks she discovered that she and this young man shared similar backgrounds, senses of humor, and dreams. They fell in love and eventually married. Today, they have three young children, and Jessica loves to tell the story of all the “bad things” that led her back home.
The apostle Paul wrote, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). That certainly sounds wonderful, but we often cannot see how bad situations are working for our good. We can’t imagine how a fatal car crash, lost job, terminal disease, or senseless killing could possibly bring a positive outcome. But what if our problem is one of perspective? We are looking at circumstances from where we stand, muddling through the maze of life on Earth.
Dennis had been a bricklayer since before he graduated from high school. At sixty-three years old, he suffered a disabling back injury and was unable to return to work. He was devastated, unskilled, afraid, and felt defeated. He didn’t know how he would support his family. He shocked himself and others when he tried painting with watercolors during his rehabilitation and discovered his enjoyment of a previously undiscovered, but much appreciated gift. He went on to become a well-known regional artist with his own gallery, blessing many with his beautiful landscapes.
With time and distance, we’re more likely to see the beauty and wisdom of God’s plans, but most of us want to know the “Why?” of a situation now rather than later. Although Solomon wrote, “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11), we don’t really trust that God always knows what is best. Sometimes, as with Angie, Jessica, and Dennis, the beauty does break through. But many of us won’t be able to truly understand what our trials and tribulations could add up to except unwanted hardship and sorrow. That’s because our perspective now is limited. One day, though, we’ll see the complete picture.
RELEASED BY FIRE
Here’s one more picture of God’s surprising plan at work for good, this time through the utter devastation of a forest fire. Strangely, it’s often calamity and oppression that give rise to the greatest transformations.
In the natural world, forest fires can be very destructive but also create the opportunity for growth. Majestic giant sequoia trees can grow to be three hundred feet tall and live for more than three thousand years. Yet to propagate, they must typically face the challenge of fire. The intense heat of a forest fire shrinks the scales of the sequoia cone, which may have been dormant for twenty years or more, releasing seeds that are no bigger than the tip of a sharpened pencil. The fire that releases the seeds also burns the leaf litter on the forest floor, creating rich, well-drained soil to welcome the tiny seeds.
I’m sure you see the parallel. Disastrous events in our lives can actually provide just the right context for important growth and transformation. Trust me, I don’t like this picture of God’s plan at all. Like most people, I don’t enjoy change and certainly don’t want change that comes through calamity. Yet I’ve seen that often the best, most healing changes in my life have been in response to heartache, frustration, loss, or setbacks.
In 1963, when apartheid dominated South Africa, Nelson Mandela was falsely accused and sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island. He was confined to a small cell, slept on the floor, used a bucket for a toilet, and spent his days performing hard labor in a quarry. He was allowed one visitor for thirty minutes each year and could write and receive a single letter every six months. As harsh and brutal as this experience was, it afforded him the time to deeply consider issues facing his country, including the need for forgiveness.
Without in any way condoning the suffering that came to Mandela and millions of others as a result of the racist policies pursued by the apartheid government of South Africa in his day, we can see how God turned this evil into good. Mr. Mandela’s hardships sharpened and matured his character and abilities such that he could ultimately be the leader who defeated oppression, championed grace and forgiveness between South Africans, and helped usher in freedom and justice for millions.
Thankfully, emotional growth and change do not always require suffering, but it would be difficult to develop compassion without in some way experiencing another person’s pain. I love C. S. Lewis’s vision of a bird and an egg. “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”3
In order to fly, we must first break through the eggshell.
Embracing the idea that God has a plan for us means always looking for His fingerprints in even our most dire circumstances. It means being willing to change our plans to match what He is doing in our lives. It means desiring His will more than our own. God has promised a plan for your life that is one of prosperity, and the true prosperity you are promised is the power to experience peace, hope, and joy, even in the midst of unwelcomed circumstances.
THE BEAUTY THAT COMES FROM ALL THINGS
God expects us to trust his promises to make all things beautiful in their time, but it is certainly not God’s desire or will for us to become crushed by our circumstances.
I don’t believe God wants us to be stuck in our circumstances of sorrow, illness, injury, or anything else that is not found in heaven. Often, he invites us to simply let go of yesterday’s questions.
But trusting God should never equal passivity. We are called instead to reach for gratitude and peace in every circumstance, and act in faith on what we know to be true. Whatever we’re facing today, however we might feel broken, our mandate is still the same—to share God’s love at all times and with everyone we meet in our broken world. That’s how beauty breaks through.
THE SEVENTH LESSON THAT HEAVEN REVEALS
In our mistakes and failures, tragedies and losses,
God never leaves us.
His goodness and love surround us.
In His time, beauty blossoms in all things.
My NDE clearly showed me the truth of God’s promise that beauty comes of all things, and that understanding this truth changes the way I talk to my kids and/or patients about disappointments, challenges, choices, and so on. I am able to encourage my children to listen to where God is leading them, knowing that the plan for their life is one of hope and beauty. I am able to encourage my patients to see opportunity for growth and change during times of injury or disability.
While it is impossible to know what I’ll be like fifteen years from now, I am certain I will be different than I am today. Between now and then, I know that I will continue to face challenges and will continue to grow and change as a result of them. This is one of the reasons I am able to experience sincere gratitude, and even joy, in the midst of sorrows and setbacks.
In this endeavor, you and I are never alone. A little like that man giving my family directions from the lookout in the mid
dle of the cornfield, God sees the larger pattern where we see only confusion and struggle. He promises that as we seek His way, and listen for His guidance, we will find our way home. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” we read in scripture, “and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5–6).
I know from my own life that, even in hard times, the comfort and grace of God’s Spirit can enable us to live in gratitude for the ways in which we are being shaped, molded, and changed by challenges. That’s why I can say to you gently but with absolute confidence that whatever heartbreak or challenge you face today, you can face it with boldness, knowing that each new encounter is an unopened gift to you from your loving heavenly Father.
Chapter 12
THERE IS HOPE IN THE MIDST OF LOSS
“And shall I pray Thee change Your will, my Father,
Until it be according unto mine?
But, no, Lord, no, that never shall be, rather
I pray You blend my human will with Yours.”
—AMY CARMICHAEL
One evening when Willie was a little boy, I was chatting with him about some silly thing or another. I began a comment with the words, “When you are eighteen….” I don’t remember the point I was about to make, but I will never forget my son’s reply.
He said simply, “But, Mamma, I’m never going to be eighteen.”
I thought he was joking. Then, with absolute sincerity and purity of heart tinged with confusion he said, “But you know I’m never going to be eighteen. That’s the plan. You know that.” His words pierced my heart, but as I think back, they also prepared me somewhat for the conversation in heaven where I was told of my son’s future death.