When Life Unravels Overnight...

When tragedy invades our lives, our initial response may be disbelief. Our whole being may experience an unraveling of the thread that holds our life together. Feelings of fear can crush feelings of hope for the future.   

          When hate prompted Joseph's brothers to sell him as a slave, his world changed overnight. He had never been away from the safety and predictability of his home. Now feelings of fear and abandonment saturated his life.

          Grief was designed by God to help us cope with tragedy and great loss. Each stage of grief helps us cope until we can face the ultimate significance of change and sorrow. Complete healing may seem out of sight. Even so, you can ask God for help found in Psalm 119. "Bless me with life, O God, so that I can continue to obey you. Speak to my heart that I will know you are present with me at this moment. I am but a pilgrim here on earth and I need you to guide my life." Let this be your prayer right now.  

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The thought of my pain, my homelessness is bitter poison. I think of it constantly and my spirit is depressed. Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing. The Lord’s unfailing love and mercy still continue. Fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. The Lord is all I have, and so in him I put my hope.

~LAMENTATIONS 3:19-24 Good News Bible

Crisis! Hope for Positive Change

On the way to visit with his uncle, Jacob stopped for a night’s rest at sundown. He was not on a leisurely vacation, but fleeing the wrath or his brother, who intended to kill him. In life’s journey, there are times when it seems things can’t get worse. Jacob no longer had the provisions and protection of his mother Rebekah and would never have her support again.

A crisis comes when appropriate changes have been disregarded. In Jacob’s case greed overrode a moral code that would have prevented him from cheating and stealing from his brother. Deception had become a way of life for him, so now he was isolated and facing the impact of a full-blown crisis without the support of his family.

It’s at these moments when we can choose the positive direction a crisis presents because God never fails in providing that decision. Even in deepest despair God provides hope for the future by shinning His light on the path we must take. He presents an alternative that is acceptable.