Through anniversaries, God’s real and moving

Six years ago today was a traumatic day—a day that started a long, long season of pain.  On that day something happened that I had no idea would happen.  What happened shouldn’t have happened, yet it did.  The details don’t matter six years on.

The season of pain I refer to occurred because I and we were blindsided.  We just didn’t see it coming. Days after that ill-fated February 25, 2016 meeting in the early afternoon, it was Sarah’s fortieth birthday—unfortunately, that was a terrible day too.

All those days were marred in that two-week period, and beyond it for months and even years were stained by the anxiety of being assailed and of having lost the future, so the present was overwhelming.

2016 was easily the hardest year of my life, which is an interesting statement to make when you consider we lost Nathanael in 2014 and I lost my first marriage in 2003.

Six years ago today I was cast into a Jeremiah 38 cistern that took so long to claw my way out of.  Though many things were going right in our lives from the viewpoint of retrospect, I had been placed in so many situations that would never have been my choice to be in, yet so many of them were actually blessed.  Many situations involved challenges that I really didn’t know if I could overcome—but I did overcome them in faith.

Six years later to the day I sit in the office, and receive a call that puts me in a position of deciding who might be offered to go over two thousand kilometres to an Incident.  I could go or I could offer it to someone else equally and ably qualified.  Yet, it’s mine to choose.  I choose the latter, not because I’m generous, but because I sense it’s the right thing to do.  Without going into the details, it’s a blessed thing to do because it’s right.

Thirty minutes later, driving home, I reflect over what just happened.  I was just so amazed by what God oversaw as I trusted the leading.  It wasn’t a huge thing, but it was significant.  And so many relatively small things have huge relative significance.

Yet three years to the date, February 25, 2019, and partial recovery was complete when I started a position as a project manager overseeing the development of school curriculum to help children become peacemakers for life.  I was trusted and deemed capable enough to manage professional staff and a budget, a senior leader on a national team.  Three years previously I could not have foreseen me in such a position.  I was successful in this role because we were all successful in our respective roles.  I used a facilitative leadership style and everyone gelled.

I find God redeems so many tragic moments of my life by reminding me through anniversaries that as he was there in my darkest hour, just as he is there for me again when times are good.

I have so many of these moments happen to me that the ‘coincidences’ are just too coincidental.

When you’re struggling to see God and you’re feeling it’s all just a tragic waste, know that God will work it for his good.  And for your benefit.  In his timing.