What makes God so special

Ok, take a deep breath... hold it.... hold it.... ok, now release it with a smile.
There now, doesn't that feel better?


I had a problem. I hurt for all these people here. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I forgot a key ingredient.
Last night I was at church early and I found myself playing "I can trust in You" The words say:

I can trust in You,
My God my Provider
I can trust in You
My Hope and my Friend.
You give me peace.
You give me joy.
I know for sure
I can trust in You.
I know for sure
I can trust in You.

Something about those words, made me realize the thing that is suppose to separate my grief, from their grief, is trust. Realizing that, made a world of difference.
And in trying to process it all, I realized something that happens all too easily.
You forget something that makes God so very special.
He's not just a big picture kind of God, He's a little picture God.

The thing with small personal problems, is I can more easily assume a large but personal God put this problem (or at least allowed this problem) in my path for a reason specific to me.
But a city wide problem, leaves you feeling like you just encountered the wrath of a city wide God. Not the small personal one who held two year old Makayla Marie Mollenhour, and five year old Teresa Arnett in His arms. He's the God that watched Debbie Brooks wake up in her bed surrounded by water. He's the God that watched Virginia Brinkley, myself, and several others pray our way through streets we should have refused to drive.

In city wide disasters, it's almost natural to imagine a city interested God. Not a you and your specific problems interested God. Small problems to me always seem specifically designed for me, for a specific need of growth in my life. A city wide problems makes me instinctively dismiss the idea that God had a specific plan for me, in this huge problem for the city.

A verse kept coming to my mind last night, from 1 Thessalonians about not grieving for the dead as those do that don't have hope. And I was considering how that applies to all grief, all sorrow, all sadness, all pain. We have hope. Whatever the problem, whatever the hurt, God is sovereign, He is in control, and He is using this for a purpose. That gives me the strength to get through any rough time.

This rough time, is not my own though, it is only people I know that are having a rough time. But while I can grieve with them, I needed the reminder that God gave me last night, that I cannot grieve like them. God has a plan for my friends, for these people I know, for these people I've only just met. I can grieve with hope for them. That this may very well change their life in the most outstandingly terrific way. They just don't see it now.

I feel better now. My hope, my spirit, my fire has returned (at least to an extent - I'm still covering my brothers paper route and caffeine is no longer doing the trick). As of tomorrow this blog stops being a journal of this disaster and goes back to doing what it normally does..... whatever that is.