Those words hit me like a ton of bricks.
In an instant my mind went racing back thru time, uprooting memories of the nights when I spoke those exact words with much of the same emotion and heartbreak. I looked sadly across the table at a broken and tearful young woman struggling and grasping for answers to take away the pain she’s been prisoner of for so many years. So deeply I wished for the ability to take away the hurt and erase the past as I listened to a story of a young girl exposed to the horrors no child should have to endure. Her story matched mine on so many levels and in so many ways it astounded me.
I knew her pain, frustration, and anger.
I’ve been there.
I’ve spoken those words.
I understood.
She spoke of the struggle of forgiveness, anger, bitterness, and hatred. “I don’t want to forgive! I cant!” she cried. “I know”, was my response. It took her by surprise, as that was not the expected reply. “I know you cant. So let God do it for you. We are only human and don’t have the ability to truly forgive. Only God can forgive and forget. Our flesh will always remind us of those feelings. Anger and bitterness is something you will always have to fight.”. “But why me? Why did it have to happen? I know there’s a reason for things, but I don’t understand what it was for?” she said thru tears.
A story I had heard long ago came to my mind and, as I began to tell her the story, God started working on my heart in a way I didn’t realize until some time later.
“There was a man who spent many afternoons at his grandmothers house as a child. His grandmother used to make quilts and had a large quilt rack that would stretch the quilt out in the room so she could work on it. He recalls the countless hours he spent playing under that quilt rack. Many times he’d look up at the underside of the quilt to see a tangled mess of thread and knots. It wasn’t pretty at all; in fact it was quite ugly. Many years later he again was at his grandmothers house and walked into the quilting room to find a masterpiece displayed. It was the same quilt she had been working on those years ago. You see his perspective had completely changed. Like the little boy, you are only able to see your life from underneath the quilt. It seems a mess and doesn’t make sense, but from above God is creating a masterpiece in you that is more beautiful that you can imagine. If you hadn’t gone thru those trials then part of that amazing picture would be missing colors. It would be like an unfinished puzzle. The things we go thru here may not make sense to us, but one day they will be explained and revealed as the most spectacular masterpiece of God’s creation.”
The comparisons to the views of the boy, the cries of this young woman, and my own life lessons took me by surprise. I had never looked at it quite like that before. I came to realize and see God’s handiwork in my own life. I realized that although some things may never be explained until Heaven, I’m witnessing one of them being explained this very moment. God had me go thru certain trials so that one day I would be sitting across from a struggling young woman and be able to help her cross that gulf that I had to cross years ago. We all have our strengths in different areas. God had given me the strength to cross years ago, but she wasn’t strong enough to make that crossing herself, so God placed me in her life at that moment to take her hand and make the jump.
Those haunting words have struck me so many times and for the first time today I was able to see just a little bit of the answer to that enormous two worded question. I was transported back in time to the seemingly endless nights of sobbing those words with no answer in sight. This young woman, though unaware, opened up a world of questions and helped shine some light on an area of my life that I thought would never be seen this side of eternity. I sat in awe and amazement of how God had intricately used and moved me to where I am now for such a time as this. Who am I that a God such as He would use me in such a way? As we parted ways that afternoon I sat in my car for a bit, humbled and blown away at the revelation God allowed me to glimpse.
There is a reason for everything in life.
Nothing goes unnoticed by God.
The trials in life may seem astronomical and without reason. That is when God is adding a few glorious, colorful touches to your masterpiece. One day it will all be revealed and the question “Why me?” will finally be answered. The past was made to be a testimony for the future and that testimony can help change lives. As with any other lesson, life lessons come with tests. Like gold put in a fire, we will come out more beautiful and pure. God sets our paths to cross those who we can help in a way, which only we are able. It’s times like those, and like mine today, that will give us a glimpse of the answer to the question we have asked so many times. Why me?
