“For if You Forgive Men Their Trespasses, Your Heavenly Father Will Also Forgive You.”
Matthew 6:14
Each of us says and does things without thinking. We don’t intend to hurt those we love, but somehow we do. I’m sure you’ve had loved ones hurt you very badly over the years. And yet, somehow you managed to forgive them and move past your sadness. When particularly bad things happen to us it can seem impossible to understand how our suffering can possibly fit into God’s plan. We can resent Him for allowing us to go through such sorrow. When I’m struggling to make sense of some sad situation – whether in my life, a friend’s life, or in the news – I try to stay focused on the fact that there’s a learning opportunity in the situation somewhere. God wants us to learn some lesson from our suffering and, if possible, make something good from it. A powerful example of this can be found with the Elliot family. John Elliot was a recent graduate of the United States Naval Academy. While on his way home for his mother’s birthday, a drunk driver traveling in the opposite direction drifted into his lane of traffic, killing John and the other driver and seriously injuring John’s girlfriend. Rather than withdraw from the world in their grief, the Elliot family chose to fight back. They have made it their life’s work to honor John and to make sure no other family has to experience the same tragedy they’ve had to endure.
We’ll never know how many lives have been saved because of their education and awareness campaigns and their work to get legislation passed. They had a choice. To just grieve or to channel that grief into some meaning. They could very easily have held a grudge against God for putting them through this. So many others would have done that. But they didn’t do that. Remember, the Lord gave us free will – the power to choose. He doesn’t just command us to worship Him. We have a choice. We can ask God to give us strength and wisdom to deal with our emotions, or we can choose to stay caught in our unhappiness. If we truly love the Lord with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul, we’ll be able to work through our emotions and come to the lesson and perhaps even the new mission the Lord has for us.
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