{Be Confident} Waiting on Why

It was an ordinary summer afternoon, and I was fourteen years old.

I don’t remember anything special or significant about the day. I don’t remember ​what the weather was like​ or what I was wearing. I don’t remember what my favorite song was​,​ or which boy I thought was cute at the time. But I do remember about three minutes​ in vivid detail, as they would change the course and shape of the life I had always known. ​

I picked up the phone to hear one of my best friends sobbing. It almost sounded like she was laughing. All she could get out was, “She’s gone. She’s gone, Courtney. She’s gone.” I was mindlessly staring at a purple t-shirt lying on my bed​, and my heart sped up in fear and confusion. I didn’t know if my friend was just being silly or if something terrible had really happened. I kept asking questions, trying to understand what she was ​trying to ​say. I heard the phone exchange hands, and my friend’s mom was on the phone. She explained to me that one of the girls in our close group of friends had been in a terrible accident earlier in the day, and had just passed away.

I had never known anything quite like it. Something that stills the world and brings you to your knees before you even know what’s happening. ​I can tell you, ​the reality of something so devastating doesn’t sink in easily. My body knew before my mind received the message, and my knees gave out from under me. I spent the next several years of my life trying to understand the why of it all. Why did my joyful, hilarious, beautiful friend have to die?

God, why did you take her? Why does she not get to grow up, and I do?

Over the years, I’ve come to understand that​ just like the loss of my friend​ -​ life is filled to the brim with heartache and situations that make us cry out to God in frustration, anger, and confusion. ​Illness, break-ups, divorce, rejection​, loss, abuse​.​..​the list goes on. And we wonder – why did God bring someone into our life just to take them away so suddenly? Why do such awful things happen to such good people? Why is this happening? What is this season for, God? Why are you letting me suffer this way?

So often, I feel like my life is just ​this​ huge jigsaw puzzle, consisting of the tiniest, most annoying little pieces scattered from here to Timbuktu.  And I’m trying desperately to find them all and fit them together. Trying so hard to understand why this piece is over here and why this piece won’t fit at all. Wanting to see it all come together ​immediately​ so that I can make the right decision. So that I can know which way to go. ​

I could tell you that I have the answers, that I’ve put all the pieces together, and that it’s simple. But that wouldn’t be the truth. I could tell you that I don’t still cry over the loss of my dear friend, and that ​I don’t think of her when I hear a certain word or song or visit a familiar place.​ ​B​ut that wouldn’t be true either. ​After she passed,​ for the longest time I believed that God must have taken her for a reason, and I wanted so desperately just​ to understand. What I do know now that I didn’t understand then is that God ​was never​ to blame​. When sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden, it allowed death and pain to be present in our lives. God didn’t choose to take my friend from me. God didn’t sit up in Heaven and look down at me complacently as I mourned and questioned and tried desperately to make sense of it all.

What I know now that I didn’t know then is that God knew my heart and heard my cries and understood my suffering.

God was mourning with me.

Friends, in the midst of our struggle, He is with us and for us and calling us to lean on Him. ​He knows you inside and out, loves you like no other, and is hurting right alongside you.​ He is fighting ​your battles​ with you​. As much as we doubt and stray, He promises that He will never leave us! And this situation that you are ​in​ now – He won’t fail you.

I wish it was as easy as waking up one morning with a healed heart or an answer to it all. I frequently wish I could snap my fingers and ​just ​know God’s intentions. His plan. The why of it all. I wish the pieces to my puzzle would fall at my feet and put themselves together.

But it takes patience​. Patience to weather the storm. Patience to change our hearts. Patience to understand. Patience to put each piece in its place. Patience to make it to the other side.​

What’s reassuring is that God sees my struggle and my questions and my pain, but He also knows where each of my pieces fit. He has gone before​ me​ and paved the way fo​r my​ life​, and knows what the future holds for me. He is holding my hand and nudging me to look towards Him, because He sees what I can’t, and He knows what I don’t. He sees my whole picture completed.

So, ​maybe you’re ​lost, or angry, or confused, or broken.​ And ​you just​ don’t know where it all fits​ or​ what it means​. ​

​H​ave patience to wait on the Lord​, my friend​. Trust that He knows your future and is preparing the way. Take comfort in the fact that He has always been faithful.​ And seek to understand that in His time, you’ll​ understand ​why.

Your grace abounds in deepest waters.
Your sovereign hand will be my guide.
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me,
You’ve never failed. You won’t start now.

– Oceans, Hillsong