When life catches you by surprise ... ugh.
- Christine DiGiacomo
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
It’s not supposed to go like this.
New flash: I am not in control, but 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. Suddenly, playing the hand we are dealt becomes the hand we must play, though it is so very different than expected.
While I'm currently in another space of 'I didn't see this one coming' in my life...I can also look in the rearview mirror, and remember another of these times. It was when my then 15-year-old Dylan 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 tournament play 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, and it was obvious he would not be able to take the field in the big game. Instead, we went to an eye doctor who told me to take him straight to the hospital. He was admitted after a CT scan revealed that the sinus infection had ran amuck and spread into the ocular region, wreaking havoc with the vision, then swelling shut. Imaging revealed that the eyeball was pushed out so far it was level with the tip of his nose. Pain? Yes, a lot. ‘But Mom,’ a dejected Dylan said, ‘this was my chance to compete at this level. Why is this happening?!’ It would be six days before he was able to go home from the hospital.
It’s not supposed to go like this.
Whether we realize it or not, we hold on to certain unspoken expectations about how ‘things are supposed to go’—things like, we are supposed to live to a ripe old
age, and not face anything terminal until we are at least 78 years of age. Of course, 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—words of life from the fourth chapter of James:
Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there 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, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”1
I remember another tough time while a sophomore at Bethel College, far from home, when the words of Psalm 37 sustained my heart, mind and soul. Read/listen to the psalm: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2037&version=NLT;ESV
David instructs: Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.2
So, when my world is rocked, the future is very uncertain, how do I trust God fully? I remember several truths that have been reality in my life.
The truths about God and his disposition to my situation:
->This [event] did not catch God off guard or by surprise
->We are to bring everything to him in prayer3; to pray without ceasing4
->When I pray, He works,5 because he is always at work
->God is both all-mighty and always good
->God alone can take what the evil one means for harm and turn it for good6
->God alone causes all things to work together for good... you know, I hear people quote this, leaving off the rest of that phrase, the full intent of God's inspiring Paul to write: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.7
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 our God off guard, and absolutely nothing 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.
God is faithful! Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT0HcAr9aeI&list=RDNT0HcAr9aeI&start_radio=1
I remain faithfully Yours, God!
God is good ... all the time.
Christine
1 - James 4.13-15
2 - Psalm 37.5,7
3 - Philippians 4.6
4 - 1 Thessalonians 5.17
5 - John 5.17
6 - Genesis 50.20
7 - Romans 8.28
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