Day 25: Transformed by Trouble

I think, no, I know that God has a sense of humor. My proof—that today was my day to blog and if there is anything I know about it is trouble. After sharing a bit of my family history with my campus pastor, he turned to me in stunned amazement and said, “I know that I am not supposed to say this but do you realize that you should be dead? How are you still alive and functioning?” Yeah, I know trouble and I do not like that I know it, been through it, endured it, had to overcome it. Sometimes, I’m very angry about it and I want a break. I think I deserve a break and some undisturbed joy. Not just the joy that comes from serving the Lord, but joy that is the result of one’s circumstances lining up to cause joy. I don’t want “faith joy” where I am believing and trusting God; I want “sight joy” where stuff is actually OK and my present reality is good—you feel me? It’s not that my life is horrible but there have been some horrid moments and everything in me rails against them. I’m no super saint, I’d rather be transformed by anything else other than trouble. Why not chocolate? Why can’t I be transformed by chocolate?!



But here’s what I have learned about trouble. I am not transformed by it. I am transformed by my trust in God. Trouble presents the opportunity to trust God and when I take that opportunity, I am transformed. The experience that crystallized this for me was when my father died. My prayer had been that God would leave me with 1 parent (I had already lost my mother) until I married and had a child. I counted on the fact that God was a healer and maybe God would have mercy on me. But God didn't. My father died and I have never hurt like that before or since. In 1 day, I lost both my parents. On that day, I might have punched someone in the face had they told me, “God is good.”

There was no goodness. It didn’t feel good. It didn’t look good. It was NOT good, at all!!! And I remember, in the quietness of hotel room after ministering powerfully at a retreat and being angry with God for deciding to show up at the worship service but not in my father’s hospital room, that in this instance I had to believe God was good because I saw no empirical evidence to support what I previously accepted as fact. That’s when I was transformed, when I decided (not felt like, was led to) yes decided to trust the goodness of God when I could not trace it; when I could not see any good being worked out.

I still miss my father terribly. The pain of his loss has been so acute that is has taken me six years to cry freely. For so long, I was like a child who falls and hurts herself so badly that she jumps up and down with that stunned look, mouth open, but no sound or tears come out because the pain is so overwhelming. I have learned to live with the loss but it’s still not good. Yet I dare to believe that God is working this together for my good; that God is good when life points to the contrary. I believe that and to answer my campus pastor’s question—it’s the reason why I am still here. I’ve been transformed by my trust.

Rev. Raquel