“...the
Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me home empty. Why call me
Naomi when the LORD has caused me to suffer and the Almighty has sent such
tragedy upon me?" Ruth 1:20-21.
If we are all
honest with ourselves Naomi expresses in words what our hearts sometimes
express in feelings. When we really
believe that God is who He says He is it comes with an awareness that God has
the power to prevent, change, and alter all circumstances. Because of this reality, sometimes the
greater our faith the harder the fall.
We are well aware that God has the power to save...the wisdom to
act...the capacity to prevent. And yet,
sometimes He doesn’t and that just leaves us bitter. Grief in whatever form searches for a
perpetrator and many times points its finger at God.
Blame and
hurt is part of loss and it cannot be reconciled and settled by the Holy Spirit
until it is taken to God. He knows our
hearts anyway so we might as well share our honesty, but we must allow our
emotions to be a temporary detour and not a destination. When we lose something important we can have
complete faith that God is continuously working in our situations. God will work through our emotions to heal,
restore and move us into a healthier walk if we will allow Him space in our
hearts. We will never understand how God
works because His thoughts and ways are so much higher than ours. When we can’t trust His plan we can trust His
heart in all situations. He sent me a
beautiful message when my sister was taken from us. He gently and lovingly answered that our loss
was her heavenly gain and He was ready to give her everything. It was a wonderful gift for God to take my
grief and shift my focus from me to her.
Grief shines its light on the one who loses, not the one who gains. I can relate to the Psalmist in chapter
31:22.
“In my haste I said, ‘I am cut off from your
sight!’ Yet you heard my cry for mercy
when I called to you for help.” Even
Naomi’s heart was transformed as written in Ruth 2:20, “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.”
Those are the
beautiful words of a healing heart on a journey that all leads to Heaven.
