"God is so good."

"So glad God was with her."

"The Lord was kind and merciful in this."

Heard a lot of these today and I have said things like them today also. Today my seventeen year old daughter ran into the back of a pick up truck. The truck had stopped to turn left and she saw that. She also saw there was nothing approaching from the other direction. The sun was blinding her and she reached up to lower the visor and looked at it instead of keeping her eyes on the road. When she looked back the truck was still sitting there and she had no time to stop. Slamming her brakes she ran into the back and under, was spun around and ended up in a ditch next to the road. Airbag blew, seat belt held fast, and she was jerked and thrown a bit, but other than some bruising and soreness she will be fine in a few days. Scary stuff for her and for us as her parents.

Take it from me, that's a horrendous call to get at 6:55 am. Rich was just coming out of the bath to dress for work. I was trying to rouse myself out of the comfort of my sheets and blanket. Then the phone rang.

I am thankful that it happened just up the road not more than a 1/2 mile from our home. I am thankful she wore her seat belt and the airbag worked properly. I do believe that God said "this far and no further" and her life was spared because of his mercy. But as I uttered those words earlier today to someone, "God is so good." The thought crossed my mind, "What if she had not lived? What if she was hurt in a way that affected her whole life? What if the man in the truck had been killed? What if. . . . Would God still be good?"

I do not mean to sound ungrateful for His protection. I am deeply thankful today. I am not questioning God's goodness either. I have faced enough as a parent to know that no matter what my eyes see, He is still bigger and knows better.

Yet, I have friends and acquaintances who have lost children to car accidents and other things. And the question begs "Where was God's goodness when those children were lost? Was He any less God? Any less in control? Is He still sovereign, omniscient? Is He still good?"

When a parent has taught and set a good example, but the child chooses to do difficult or even dangerous things, and becomes a run away, an addict, or stays in an abusive relationship - couldn't God have stopped them?

When a child is molested and victimized even though the parents tried to protect and keep her safe, is God any less God because of it?

When a couple adopts a baby and wants to love and protect this child as their own, but finds the child cannot accept their love and will not respond in love toward them. Is God still love? Did He know how hard it would be?

When a daughter does nothing wrong except ride with a friend to school and ends up losing her life, is God still God?

I can tell you with assurance, He is still God 100%. He is still sovereign, and omniscient. He is still merciful, kind, and good.

In fact, it is his mercy, his kindness, and his goodness that will sustain one through such horrors. Death, abuse, addiction, rebellion and the like are the results of living in a sin torn world. They are the chart, the portrait set before us to remind us and call us to the Living God. He is more than good or merciful. He is Life. And apart from him we walk in death.

The psalmists cry over and over throughout the book not only in praise and gladness, but in distress and fear. In Psalm 88 the poet writes, "O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee: Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry: For my soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave." (KJV) It moves forward in the same manner crying out to God in dispair. These psalms are meant to comfort us as we relate to the distress and the cry of the heart.

In other places Isaiah tells us that the Lord's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. That even as the sky is higher than us so are the Lord's thoughts and ways higher than ours. Ruth Bell Graham told a beautiful story once about a life picture and how the person could only see the mess of tangles and threads hanging loose throughout the frame. The person was so ashamed that this was the picture her life had created and that the Lord would see such a mess. But when called to stand with Jesus what she saw was the other side of the work and it was a beautiful embroidered picture of Jesus. She had only seen the back side from here. But there next to the Savior she saw what it really looked like to Him.

I don't know how any one carries the deep heart ache of losing a child and not share that burden with Christ. I don't know how others parent without prayful consultations with the Lord. I do know that whether you seek him out or not, He is still sovereign, omniscient, good, kind, merciful, and by the way, gracious. We see the knots and tangles of this life and those things hurt us deeply. But when we trust Him with the pain and take comfort through His peace, His Spirit, only then will we find rest from even the senseless and life altering. That peace lifts us above our situation, above the moment and into His care, and we are able to breathe, to rest, to not need to understand it all but leave it in the Lord's hands without question. And in those moments when nothing else seems right or true or fixable - He is still God, He is still good.