The Unbearably Beautiful Nuances of God's Strands OR The Ronnie Ripple Effect

It's been a hard few months... a bit of what I would call the "piling-on" effect (trademark pending).  There has been loss and change.  (Andrea Fun Fact:  Change is a funny thing for me... I think I like it and even love it, but when it happens I'm all, "Hey. whoa who,Change, take it easy and just slow down a bit and stop sweatin' me")   I have felt sadness, fear and peace bumping up against one another while I try to sort through lots and lots and LOTS of different strands of thought (they're like a big ole' ball of stringy blech). 

Today, God wanted me to stop barreling through and just hear HIM.  He eased me into it by giving me the gift of a timely phone call from a friend who knew just the way to my heart today.  She zoomed right to my scariest fear (which will always and forever be about being a good... nay great, mother to my most precious gifts) and took a baseball bat of love to it.  She smacked it right outta the park and it was going, going...gone. 

So next on the God agenda was a Nugget conversation... and those are always so full of excitement (no, for real...you never know what he's gonna say next).  I was getting him ready for his "men's day out" (his words) or as we in the mommy-industry like to call it..a play date.  During which a conversation took place that rocked me to my core....

Somehow the weird topic of the lottery came up...as will happen when you are having a conversation with a seven year old.  He launched in with, "Mommy, I wanna win the lottery".  I somewhat absentmindedly chimed back (all while trying to wrangle him to wash his syrupy face), "We don't need to win the lottery; God gives us everything we could ever need...and even some of our 'just wants', too". 

He squinted his eyes and put his pointer finger up...a SURE sign that he's gonna bring his side of the debate home with his big selling point.  "Yeah, but I could help tons and tons of people with tons and tons of money". 

"Yes, that's true", I say, trying to comb syrup out of his hair (don't ask...cause I have no idea how it got there either), " but you can still help tons and tons of people without winning the lottery". 

"Yeah, I guess".  (a big pause that usually indicates a SUPER DUPER deep thought is in the works).  "Mom, I bet God just lets people who love Jesus win the lottery cause He knows they'll do good stuff with it".

Ohhhh boy...These are the parental moments that have you scrambling with frenzied need through your mental scripts of appropriately "Godly-ish things to say in answer to your seven year olds super duper deep thoughts".  These are also the moments when you realize that in the interest of truth, you can only free-style this kind of talk ....and oh...ps.. a teeny tiny worm of panic slithers through you...or maybe that's just me...at the thought of the utter weightiness that the next 10 minutes or so will have on your precious son's view of his God and the world....so, you know...NO pressure.

I sat down in my makeup chair and took a deep breath and began the far-reaching  task of trying to explain Matthew 5:45 to my shiny-faced, spit-polished seven year old Nugget.

Matthew 5:45 ⁴⁵ That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He  maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

"What that means, Nug, is that God loves us ALL.  He is good and gracious to us all...and none of us have done a doggone thing to deserve it.  Good and bad happen to both people who love Jesus AND those who don't want to know Him, and God wants us to show the same love and gracious giving heart to everyone, as well.  Whether they love Jesus or not. " 

And here's where things got really....well...just amazing.

"You know, it's like when we told you about Aunty Courtney's brother Ronnie...remember?  He loved Jesus, and he was killed while serving Him by people who don't know Jesus yet.  That's a sad sad thing, but sometimes bad and sad things happen in our lives so that God is always the center of the attention.  So that He is what everyone is looking at." 

Wait for it....wait for it...

"But, Mom, (pause for nose scratching) wasn't that ALL a good thing?", he asks me, with his eyebrows all scrunched up.  "Because Ronnie probably asked Jesus all the time for people to know about God and also when he was going to get to see God cause he wanted to be with Him, and so God said 'Okay you can come see Me now'...so actually, it's all good cause he got the both things that he always wanted the most... soooo good and good."

Feel free to sob and snot all over yourself here...cause I sure did. 

I was so absolutely blown away at the clarity of Christ in the seven year old heart, and I cannot express how other-worldly blessed I feel that God  intervened on my day in this way.  He reminded me that life is FULL of almost unbearably beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking nuances, and that they run together, sometimes all jumbled and bunched in what may seem like an indefinable mess to us.   BUT TO GOD...to God, that "jumbled mess" is actually His hand-picked stands of purpose ,and therefore joy, for our lives.  My boy's world has been FOREVER impacted by the strands life and death of a man he never knew.  Just hearing that Ronnie loved Jesus was enough for my boy to KNOW that it was all for good.  Ronnie's story strands have become a part of my son's world view and will now be joined together with Nugget's own strands.  It just makes you wanna jump for joy...doesn't it!!?!! 

And for me...well, it really helped me stop trying to unravel all those tangled thoughts and ideas and plans ('cause, quite frankly, it's been exhausting) and instead get back the basics of reading, praying and following God's strands for my life...one step at a time...wherever they may lead.

As I write this I am listening to my personal anthem ("As Long as You Are Glorified" by Sovereign Grace Music).  It has gotten me through MANY uncertain times.  I want to leave you with these lyrics because they really cut through all the emotional baloney and get right down to the defining moment of truth:  "

Shall I take from Your hand Your blessings
Yet not welcome any pain?
Shall I thank You for days of sunshine
Yet grumble in days of rain?
Shall I love You in times of plenty
Then leave You in days of drought?
Shall I trust when I reap a harvest
But when winter winds blow, then doubt?

CHORUS
Oh let Your will be done in me
In Your love I will abide
Oh I long for nothing else as long
As You are glorified

VERSE 2
Are You good only when I prosper
And true only when I’m filled?
Are You King only when I’m carefree
And God only when I’m well?
You are good when I’m poor and needy
You are true when I’m parched and dry
You still reign in the deepest valley
You’re still God in the darkest night

BRIDGE
So quiet my restless heart
Quiet my restless heart
Quiet my restless heart in You

I am so thankful today for my quieted heart...  may all ours hearts be quieted today and may God be continually glorified.

This post is dedicated to the memory of THE BEST-most sarcastic bus boy I ever worked with, Ronnie Smith;  and in celebration of the birth of his brand-new beautiful niece, Ronnie Grace... God's blessings on you all. xoxox

For more information on this man's amazing passion for God visit: 
Ronnie Smith's Journey