Flooding, Lights Out and Cyclones…Oh My

What Do You Do When Your Life Sounds Like the Bad Plot to a Novel?

We started the year off with a bang when our youngest daughter broke her arm. She then came down with Scarlet Fever. Severe flooding down south took out our electricity for one month…yes, a whole month. I injured my foot, Michael traveled for five weeks, and while he was gone a cyclone, which last I read, had knocked down over 12,000 houses in our province and the one to the north of us.

O.K. Deep breaths in…and out. This brings me to the question, what do we do in the midst of trials? No matter what part of the world we are in we will face trials of different kinds. To be honest with you, I struggled with this question for a while. I have a great God who led me to his Word and other believers who encouraged me.

I can’t pretend to know the mind of God but am convinced that some of these trials were to strengthen our faith but I believe that the majority of them weren’t even for our sake. One of the reasons I go through trials is to be a light to others. I was able to show Jesus’ love when I had people come ask for help after their house fell down, I helped provide food for others in time of crisis and listened to their stories- showing that I really cared about them.

All of that is to say that the next time we are in the middle of a trial we need to ask ourselves, “What does God want to do through me in this situation?” It is not always easy, it is not always pleasant and it doesn’t satisfy our natural tendencies to want everything to be about us.