When it hurts

I had an wonderful few days hanging out with my friend Laura in Delaware last weekend, and I think I'm coming off of cloud 9, so everything else seems a little dull.

On my flight home from Baltimore to Grand Rapids, I had a very thoughtful conversation with the lady sitting next to me. She started out asking me where I was from, where I went to school, and the usual stuff like that. I pulled out my student ID to show her my campus and when she saw it, she said "oh, Covenant! That's a Christian school, right? Why did you want to go there?" I got to telling her about how I wanted to be like the people I had met while visiting; people of conviction and an active faith. She asked a few questions about what my plans were after school, and other general life questions, and I went on saying I was excited about life and my options. About how I've been blessed in so many ways, and excited to see what God would have for me. She smiled and said, "I was you before. I know how that is." She now has 2 kids and is married to her 6th grade sweetheart.

The interesting part of the conversation was when she started talking about how she introduced herself as having 3 kids. She lost a brother at age 4, and seeing what it did to her parents she prayed to God her whole life, through her teenage rebellion and coming back to God, that he would not ever do that to her. In May of this year, 4 days before her due date, the umbilical cord had a quarter inch twist and her baby died. "I could have said, 'ok God, at least he is with you', if he was deformed or something, but he was perfect. I was so angry at God. 1 in 10,000. Medically, thats the statistic. I was that 1 in 10,000."

"There's a secret that God doesn't tell you when you sign up. When you're at your weakest, he teaches you what you couldn't otherwise learn."

I don't have any idea how to deal with that loss, but she has gotten over her anger toward God. Our hope is in the resurrection. That is where we place our trust so when the storms of life come, we know that we have the victory over death.