How do I live when things just don't make sense?

On seeing Ghana, West Africa, for the first time, my mind couldn't wrap around the fact that on the same small planet such diverse living conditions could simultaneously exist.  I faced the reality of the abundance of my life versus the lack that my Ghanian friends face daily.  I didn't understand it.  I knew that the life I've been blessed with was unearned and undeserved. I saw the life of sacrificial commitment to Christ that so many of those I met were living, and I knew that I should be learning from them and not them from me.  It all just made no sense.

While life has certainly not been completely free from suffering, loss, and pain for me,  I know that I have been spared and sheltered from so much when I see and hear of some of the things that others have gone through.  I know that while I am planning and preparing for my daughter's wedding, my friends, leaders in our church, are preparing for their daughter's funeral.  It all just makes no sense.

When I heard that Nepal experienced another earthquake yesterday, almost as bad as the one they recently experienced and have yet to recover from,  I felt heartsick and helpless.  Then, last night my husband and I made the mistake of watching the movie, The Impossible, right before bed.  It's the true story of a family who survived the 2004 tsunami.  After watching all of the horror that they went through to survive and the miraculous way they were reunited, the movie ends with them being flown away for medical care in Singapore.  Somehow the movie was able to capture the emotion of them facing the inequity of the fact that they were spared and whisked away from all of the devastation while hundreds of thousands were not.  It just made no sense.

Here's what I do know.  While Jesus was on this earth He went to a wedding.  In fact, He miraculously provided wine for the wedding so that the party wasn't cut short when the wine supply ran out.  I'm sure that while He was at the celebration, suffering happened in some home right there in the same town where He was partying, right there in Cana of Galilee.  It's possible, maybe even probable, that someone in Cana died that day.   While it makes no sense to me that He didn't spend His thirty three and a half years on planet  earth eliminating all of the suffering for everyone, He was at peace just doing what the Father told Him to do and saying what the Father told Him to say and trusting the rest into the Father's hands.  He knew that the Father had a big picture finale planned for dealing with this sin scarred world.  There is a Day coming, a Great Day marked on the Father's calendar,  when tears will be wiped away, suffering will cease, and planet earth will be made new.  But,  Jesus lived on planet earth in the not yet, and so do we. 

 So, how do I live when the suffering around me just doesn't make sense?  I do what is right in front of me to do, trying my best to listen to God's voice, trying my best to do what He says to do and say what He wants me to say.  Then I have to simply trust God with the rest.

 This coming Saturday I will weep with those who are weeping at a funeral. The following Saturday I will rejoice with those who are rejoicing as my youngest daughter gets married.  My daughter is getting married!  I'm so deeply, deeply happy and am confident that this marriage is God's doing.  So, I'm going to follow Jesus' example and do what He said to do. When those wedding songs are played, I'm going to kick off my shoes, rejoice, celebrate, and dance.   

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