Day 15 – God’s Mysterious Plan

On June 29, 2007 I was at home working when I answered a phone call from Terry. She was on her way to the emergency hospital because our youngest daughter Allie had broken both of her arms.

I was stranded at home because we didn’t have a second vehicle at the time.

For Terry, she had been visiting her sister and all the cousins were playing on the trampoline outside. When our oldest daughter Sam came carrying Allie inside, supporting her under her armpits, I can’t imagine the fear in all of their eyes. Allie was barely conscious from pain and it took a few moments where time seemed to stand still to even comprehend what was wrong.

They drove towards town and met the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

Needless to say this was traumatic for all involved. The kids, Allie, Terry and her sister and me.

In the weeks that followed Allie, at the age of 6, asked a question we all ask at critical points in our lives.

“Why?”

I remember it like it was yesterday. We were in her bedroom, it must have been a week or two later, since she was on pretty powerful pain meds the days following.

It was bedtime and I was laying beside her in her bed and she asked me… “why did God let this happen to me?”

I paused and then I told her the story of Job.

I read to her that Job “had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants.”

Three messengers came to Job one after the other in rapid succession and in those moments, maybe much like that moment when Allie was carried into my sister-in-law’s house, confusion and fear reigned.

Total shock… Job’s sheep, camels, oxen, donkeys, and servants were all killed, except for the ones that made it back to tell him the terrible news. And the last one delivered the final blow, all 10 of his children were gone.

I explained how we know that Job was a righteous man because God said he was. And yet, this happened.

Then, I flipped to the final chapters of the book where Job demands that God answer for these disasters.

And amazingly, God grants him an audience. And what an audience it was.

It’s a storm, full of God’s power and presence. God asks Job if he was there when the earth was formed, if he understands its intricacy and the ways of creatures, creatures too great to tame, too wild to overcome. He calls Job to account and asks how he, a mere human, could possibly run the universe in all of its complexity.

In other words, I explained gently, this question is not for us to ask. It’s not for us to know. We cannot fathom its answer. We cannot grasp how God runs the world.

And then I read the closing verses of the book.

Let me read them here today:

“The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.  And he also had seven sons and three daughters.”

Did you see it?

God blessed Job again, and everything doubled. From 7,000 sheep to 14,000 sheep. 6,000 to 12,000 camels. Same for oxen and donkeys.

And he had 10 children.

Just 10.

Why only 10? Why did the number of children not also double to 20?

Because the 10 that died were not lost forever to him, I explained, because they were in heaven. So in heaven, Job would have 20 children.

Then we wept together, father and daughter. We offered our pain and grief to the Father, and submitted our hearts to his mysterious plan.

And peace flooded the bedroom.