It requires great effort for me to live out faith in the promise we read about in Romans 8:28. I know that God really does work all things - the bad included - for the good, but I have to consciously work at allowing that knowledge to manifest in my thoughts, words, and actions, because, well, it is backward.
Several weeks ago at a prophetic equipping night at church, I was partnered with someone I had never met before. We prayed over one another, then shared what God had laid on our hearts. After forewarning me that she knew what God had told her was very personal, she listed off three traits I have: self-sufficiency, endurance, and stamina, and told me the exact reason I have them. What she spoke of were things from my youth, followed by specific reassurances God had given me in prayer in the days and weeks leading up to this particular church service. I was speechless. The very things I had been struggling with from my past had been used to develop traits that I quite literally need in my daily life as a teacher by day and a single mother by night. My tears served as praise to my Heavenly Father, thanking Him for once again making beauty from the ashes.
This came to mind this afternoon. A trip to the bookstore included one of my children defying instruction and thus accepting a natural consequence for her choice. It also included an incredible blessing. On the way home, my sweet rebel child said, “Mama, I am sorry for disobeying, but I’m glad I did. The only reason the man who works at the store was able to bless Sister was because I disobeyed. If I hadn’t disobeyed, we would’ve bought my book and then we couldn’t have bought the book for Mr. Berner’s baby, and then that man couldn’t have blessed sister.”
She was right. Her disobedience cost her, but it gave my other daughter a choice: to buy a book for herself or to buy a book for a friend’s son who is currently in the NICU. In choosing selflessness, the cashier - whose brother was born prematurely - chose to bless her by purchasing the book she put back so she could bless someone else. We didn’t have enough money for both the baby and my oldest. Sin presented a choice and in choosing honorably, blessings arose all around…even for my sweet rebel child.
This backward way of doing things is woven into the seemingly small things, like a trip to Barnes and Noble, and the big and impactful things, like traumatic events. While some may wonder why the bad has to happen in order for good to follow, I am confident - as I have learned through enduring trials of many kinds - that the good is that much sweeter when it is birthed from that which was intended to harm.
Backward is His way, and it is oh-so beautiful.