Last night, after we got home from church, my wife slipped as she got out of the truck. Jane has a high pain tolerance. She gave birth to four children and barely cried once. When she fell last night and hurt her right ankle, she cried in pain. I had never heard her do that ever. After some struggle, I got her back into the truck and we made the twenty-minute trip back into town to get her to the ER. She felt every bump in the road on the way. I really felt bad for her. An X-Ray confirmed that she had a non-displaced fracture of the right fibula, lateral malleolus. The lateral malleolus is that bony bulge on the outside of your ankle.
Before all this happened, Jane was working part-time as a nurse instructor and had recently interviewed for the full-time position. That interview went very well. As of this writing, we are not sure if she has the full-time job or not. But things were looking great. Then she broke her ankle. Things aren’t looking so great now. In fact, it’s downright discouraging.
Somehow, Romans 8:28 still applies.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
I know believers quote this so much in time of crisis that it has become cliché in Christian circles. Cliché or not, it’s still true. Where we waste a lot of time is trying to figure out the “why” behind our trials, or the lesson behind them. God does not always tell us the “why” and sometimes it takes a while for us to understand the lesson. Sometimes that delay comes from God. Sometimes that delay is our own pride or ignorance. How many times did the Lord tell His disciples of His upcoming death and resurrection and their spiritual immaturity kept them from getting the point?
I don’t know why this happened when it did, or the purpose behind it, or the lesson to be learned. All I know is that all things will work together for good even when you break an ankle.
[Photo by Glenn Haertlein on Unsplash]
Written 10/31/2019
Grace in Waves 