A little wisdom from finding nemo

As I laid awake in bed last night trying to fall asleep, I began hearing the voice of a cute character known very well in my home.  Some wisdom came to me from that cute blue fish Dori.  You may remember the scene.  Marlin, a clown fish looking desperately for his lost son is friends with this forgetful blue fish.  He is upset at himself and proclaims to her that he had promised he'd never let anything happen to his son and he failed.  Dori, who is not known in the film for her wisdom was right on with her response.  She told him it was pretty sad to try to not let anything happen to him because, how would anything happen to him? 

I thought about this for quite sometime last night.  Really there is a lot of wisdom to this thought. 

My family and I have been going through some trials over the last couple of months.  I've been learning myself first hand that life is in fact a roller coaster.  The highs never last and neither do the lows.  We always wish the happy times would last forever, and the bad times can't escape us fast enough. 

The past year for us the roller coaster ride has been a very emotional one.  Hurtful things being said.  Family rolling in and out of our lives.  Our teenage daughter unexpectedly running away and not coming back.  My husband got laid off from work.  Everyone wants money from us that we don't have.  Trying to stay on the same page as husband and wife.  Trying to hold ourselves together for our kids.  Health issues for our children.  Crying inside over family members and their personal problems.  Wanting more in life but everything being just beyond our grasp.  I am being vague but I think you get the gist. 

The past 2 months we got hit with some more hits.  One a person wanting money we already paid from 8 years ago in the amount of over eight thousand dollars.  This person was pretty malicious in waiting past 8 years and must have known that we can't get proof.  Our bank doesn't have to keep records past 7 years by law.  Then we have another bill for just under $3000 that isn't our bill as well.  A new job is a blessing but a stress as well.  My home based business will not work with the new schedule.  It is causing a total change in our household.  My youngest son is having a medical issue and the doctors have me frustrated with their lack of cooperation or concern.  Our van broke down.  Our dryer is broke.  For some reason among all of this - I decided to help out some friends and puppy sit.  Oh yeah, I bit of way more than I can chew.  

In my wallowing in self pity, to which I am very good at by the way.  I think of the story of Job in the bible.  All he had to suffer through and endure.  Looking at my little life and it puts my silly little problems into perspective.  It makes me feel foolish to get so stressed out and sad over such silly things.  I have so much to be thankful for.  Why I don't take more time to appreciate all the good that I have, I just don't know.  Job lost everything he owned, his family, his children, and everything he held dear to him.  Yet his response to it all was, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart.  The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."

I've wondered a lot in the past and even lately, why the Lord would put me through this suffering when he could easily make it all go away.  Even more, I wondered why the Lord would make Job suffer as he did.  After all, Job did lose a lot more than I ever did. 

I don't believe that God is the source for any evil.  I do believe he can turn bad things into good, or use a bad situation for a benefit of some kind.  Weather it be to glorify His name, or to benefit and bless someone in their time of need.  I do believe that evil, and that also means grief and pain come from Satan.  This same way though God is the infinite.  His powers are over all.  In other words, he can at any time trump Satan and stop him in his tracks.  So, in a way he does allow the evil to happen. This brings me a little back to the lesson from Dori.  As I think about why God would let this happen to me, or Job and I think about Dori and her words of wisdom it becomes a little clearer to me.  God can't stop things from happening to us.  If he did, then nothing would ever happen to us.  We'd never learn anything, we'd never grow, and without trials we'd never fully appreciate those joyful times that are so precious. 

It is easy to be joyful when things are great.  It is easy to show love to all, to praise the Lord for all the blessings we have.  The real test comes when these hard times hit us.  How then do we treat the ones we love?  How then do we praise the Lord?