When I Hurt

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with our family this year and it’s partly because our family keeps growing. In the past few years we have added five more grandchildren to the mix so there’s a lot to be thankful for. And speaking of thankful…one of the little kids asked if we could go around the room and have each person say what they are thankful for. Every person spoke up and every person spoke from the heart, giving thanks for a wide variety of blessings including love and friendship.

Being thankful is what Thanksgiving is all about, taking the time to express our gratitude for the blessings bestowed upon us. But what about the non-blessings bestowed upon us? What about the anxiety of upcoming surgery, the fear of financial problems or the pain caused by inconsiderate people? Should we be thankful for the bad things in our lives? Should we be grateful for evil?

For example….Last Monday we discovered that thieves broke into the commercial mailbox at our business complex over the weekend and stole all the mail. That creates a huge problem for all the business owners because we will never know what documents, letters or checks were stolen and it will take months to straighten it out. Unfortunately we will never recover all of the lost information and the thieves will probably profit greatly from their evil doings. (Coincidentally, the personal mailboxes on our street were vandalized on Friday as well, creating the same bad situation at home.)

It’s going to take a few weeks to get a new commercial mailbox installed, so we now have to go to the Post Office every day to pick up our mail. When I picked up the mail on Tuesday there was a large mailing tube addressed to me personally and inside was a poster. It was an awesome poster made from photographs that were taken when I played at the MSBL Baseball World Series last month. It was a gift I didn’t know was coming and had it arrived over the weekend, it would have been lost forever. Ironically, the thieves would have found no value in it at all… but to me it is absolutely priceless!

 
I am convinced it is extremely important to be thankful for our blessings and express our thanks to God on a regular basis. As far as evil goes, I’m never going to be grateful for it, nor do I believe God causes it. But I can use it as motivation to be even more appreciative of the many blessings that I regularly receive. Although I’ve felt great pain in my life and although I’ve been hurt deeply many times, one thing I’m sure of…when I hurt…God hurts with me! (Why else would there be holes in His hands.)

Every happening, good or bad, is a parable whereby God speaks to us…

And the art of life is to get the message.  

~ Malcolm Muggeridge