It is well

This week I find myself thinking, just thinking about so many things.  I learned this week, that a friend of mine from my high school days has cancer.  She most likely does not have very long left here on this earth.  She has a husband and a young son.  My mind can hardly fathom it.  She is my friend.  She is my age.  She is 29.  She is too young. She has so much left to do.  She has a son to watch grow. She has more people to touch.  I try to put myself in her shoes or in her husband’s shoes and I find that makes it very hard to breathe.  I know that this is not the way they would have wanted or expected life to go, they would not have signed up for this path…

I had the opportunity to be at a conference that equips women to be better wives and mothers.  One woman shared her long journey with infertility in the face of every single person she knew getting pregnant.  That path was not what she signed up for.

Another shared a story of how for 22 years she had a seemingly normal life.  Then her husband got sick and one thing led to another and now he is on medication for a bi-polar disorder.  She has a new normal and it is not what she signed up for.

Still another woman lost her sight at age 15.  She has been blind now for more years that she had sight.  And it’s hard.  It’s not what she signed up for. 

I know in my mind that God is absolutely sovereign, that before any of these situations reached these families it came through God’s hand.  I absolutely believe that, with all my heart, yet it is still so hard for me to understand the why’s of it all.  But something I heard yesterday really touched my heart.  It is not always well with our circumstances.  Life happens, cancer happens, sickness happens, infertility happens, blindness happens.  Our circumstances change in big ways and small ways all the time and it is not always well with our circumstances.  BUT, even though it is not always well with my circumstances, it is well with my soul.  I have been given, by Jesus Christ, enough grace to handle my circumstances, even when they feel like they may break my heart.  It is well with my soul because of Jesus Christ and the hope that I have in him.  I pray that if you read this blog that you can say, though it is not well with my circumstances, it is well with my soul.