How do you reconcile God's purposes with our reality? Only by the grace of God...His unmerited favor to us, and last week I witnessed His grace in action. I went to the states last week for a selfish reason. I needed to see some of my very best friends who had experienced a tragedy. I needed to see how they were. I needed that. I couldn't stay in Guatemala not knowing, not seeing for myself.
In a lot of ways their lives will never be the same. That's reality. In a lot of ways their lives will go on as before. That's also reality, but it is also grace. When we suffer loss and tragedy and are unable to face the reality that life can return to some semblance of normalcy, we stifle God's grace and do not accept it. This family has been covered with the prayers of God's people and God has answered. Do they still have moments and days of sorrow and grief? Sure they do, but in ways that probably they don't even realize, God's grace brings them relief.
I'm back in Guatemala now and can rest in the fact that God's grace is at work, not that I ever doubted it, but I am grateful that He let me see His grace in action.
We can try to guess and speculate as to God's purpose for what happened, but the truth is, we don't know and probably will not know in this life. Only God knows the purpose, and that is also reality.
