For a month that started not so great, April ended on quite a high.
It began with me desperately pining for a break and Easter weekend being one of my top three ‘worst days of my life’. Then nearly two weeks ago I received the incredibly shocking news that a friend lost her son. I think things pretty much spiralled after that.
I have heard of unexpected deaths before, some closer than others. But what was particular about this one was that I knew my friend well. I knew how far she had come with the Lord and we had only just finished celebrating a particularly awesome blessing in her life. I felt so totally blindsided.
I kept wondering how God could have let that happen. So did it mean that this could happen to any of us and God would not even, at the very least, give us some kind of a heads up. Super scary ish.
I wondered about all the emotions she was probably feeling: disbelief, guilt, anger, bitterness, helplessness. I prayed for her. Prayed that her faith would not fail, but even as I prayed I kept wondering what I would do if I were in her shoes.
A few days later, I happened upon a movie on African Magic. I had not been paying particular attention to it initially, until something struck me. It was about a poor widow and her devoutly christian daughter. The widow had fallen ill and because there was no money to get proper treatment, she died.
What struck me was that after she died, her daughter began to lose her faith: she stopped praying, stopped attending church. According to her, how could she keep serving a God who had no problem with seeing her suffer (or words to that effect). And honestly when I heard those words I could totally relate. I remember thinking, “well God can you blame her? You sef, check am. This matter be as e get biko.”
Unfortunately, at the time all of this was happening, there was a ne’er-do-well in their village whose advances she had repeatedly turned down. In frustration, he had gone to seek help from a native doctor, but all the potions they had prepared kept failing; because according to the native doctor, “she had a power protecting her.”
Well, guess what happened when she decided to ‘free’ God. They began to notice that the power around her was getting weaker and weaker. Long story short the charm worked eventually.
I did not watch beyond then, but it got me thinking. I have not had any personal tragedies as bad, but there have been times I have felt betrayed by the Lord. Times when I thought we were cool then He goes and lets something bad happen. And my go-to method for airing my grievance is to keep malice with Him. 😆 #sillyme
And when I remember the Bible says to give thanks whether in bad or good times, I think, “easy for You to say when You are sitting comfortably in heaven removed from all the tragedy that is this life.”
What that movie got me to realise was that God says we should stay with Him, tragedy or no, because He knows the devil is just waiting for us to step away so he can strike. That instruction is actually for our own good! I’d honestly never considered that. That in all my malice-keeping, I was probably making myself more vulnerable to the devil than I was airing any grievance.
I still do NOT understand a lot of the things God does or why He allows certain things, but each day I discover a little better just how much He is looking out for me. For all His children.
Ninnyzworld 