...pain and pictures

I love pictures. The captured moment frozen in time forever. It’s not a simple image. It’s a portrait of depth that speaks a story and I can never ever get enough of them.  As much as I love pictures there are some I would rather not ever see. 

It was a little boy from our church. The smile would melt your heart, but the head that once held brown hair was what made me cry. 

Only a few weeks ago a family’s life was turned upside down by the one dreadful word of cancer.  I’m too far away to visit, so I read their blog. I read the words that tell how this little boy can’t walk around in the store because it makes him too tired. There are tales of blood transfusions and biopsies. There are pictures too. Sometimes you can’t see the little face because it’s covered up by a big white mask and sometimes it’s hard to recognize the little boy in the picture because his hair is gone.

It all seems so wrong. Why do lives have to be turned upside down for illness and injury?  Isn’t life cruel enough without having to add a horribly major glitch to our lives? 

There is a purpose in suffering, but when you are middle of such depths of pain it’s hard to see what the plan really is. 

We have a God that knows our struggles and sorrow like no other. Even when it may not appear so this same God is shaping everything just the way He thinks it should be and it’s all for His glory.

Because of this the words pain and hope can go together like the freshness of green grass in the spring. Both speaking of a promise of better things to come. 

Sometimes life stops for pain, but the hope of goodness of God never stops.