It’s not supposed to go like this  -  Day One.

New flash:  I am not in control, and friend, neither are you. 

Indeed, I was not very old when I began to realize that things do not always go as planned . . . as a matter of fact, things sometimes go wrong.  And so, how does the hand that we are dealt now become the hand we must play, though it is so different than expected??

This last week, my 15-year-old son was living large, playing in a holiday soccer tournament, as a sophomore on his Division One varsity high school team.  The guys seemed to come alive in this tournament, and advanced to the championship game against a local powerhouse.  One of two goalkeepers, Dylan had a right to think he would play at least half the game, perhaps more, as his play thus far in the tourney had been exemplary.  But then … on the day in between, his nagging sinus infection got worse, and warranted a visit to the local ‘urgent care’ facility.  The doc put him on a powerful antibiotic, and we went home hopeful.

As the evening wore on, however, Dylan had a lot of pain and discomfort in his sinuses, especially in one eye.  By morning, the eye had begun to swell considerably; clearly, he would not be able to take the field in the big game.  Instead, we went to an eye doctor, who recommended we take him straight to the hospital.  Within hours, he was admitted, a CT scan revealing that the sinus infection had ran amuck and spread into the ocular region, wreaking havoc with the vision, causing his eye to swell shut, and a great deal of pain.  ‘But Mom,’ the 15-year-old objected—‘this was my chance to compete at this level.  Why is this happening?!’  It’s not supposed to go like this. (Five days later, Dylan is still in the hospital.)

As we move further into life, we still hold on to certain unspoken expectations about how ‘things are supposed to be’—things like, we are supposed to live to a ripe old age, and not face anything terminal until we are at least 72 years of age.  No one says that, but we all kinda think it.  We hold on to similar expectations of how things are supposed to be for our children, our marriages, our careers, etc. 

Remembering I am not in control, I recall verses I memorized from the book of James when I was 11 years old—verses that remind me that ‘you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year.  We will do business and make a profit’.  How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?  Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, and then it’s gone.  What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”

I remember a very difficult time when I was in college 2,000 miles from home, when things were definitely not going like I thought they would; I clung to verses from Psalm 37:

Commit your way to the Lord, Trust in him and he will bring it to pass.

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.

There is nothing like Scripture to encourage, support, inform and breathe life into us.

You see, when we trust in the true and living God, we are to entrust all of ourselves to him, knowing always that his heart toward us is good—even when things don’t go like we thought they would.  Nothing catches him off guard or surprises him.  Picture a small child walking through thatched woods with his father—he is unable to see what lurks beyond the next tree, or around the next bend, but clutching his father’s hand, he trusts that he will be safe.  It is the same with you and me.

We serve not just a true and living God, but a loving, benevolent Father as well.  You and I can trust him with all of who we are . . . even when things do not go like they are supposed to!

Christine