Just because I need to remind myself...

I love this quote so much that I copied and pasted it from a previous blog entry:

I remember hearing Tim Keller quote Tolkien, saying something like - "God will someday make everything sad come untrue, but somehow the suffering will make our eternal glory and joy even greater for having been through it." Keller went on to say that somehow, through the cross, we can see that God will enhance our joy, through our suffering. It will be more glorious for having once been wrong and bad.

In different areas of my life I can really see this to be true, at least in part. I often think about how devastated the disciples must have been after Jesus was killed, before His resurrection. They had put their lives on the line, given up everything, and then - gone, He was gone, He did not save Himself. It's hard to imagine how horrible that must have been for them. When I start to get overwhelmed, I remind myself that I am only seeing a small part of the picture He's painting.

I've mentioned this before, but we had two difficult miscarriages when we were trying to start a family. One of them left me in the hospital for emergency surgery and without a fallopian tube. I can still taste the sadness and disappointment that ensued. Of course, God has not made that become untrue, *yet*, but He has blessed me with the sweetest joy in my kids. Part of what caused us to consider adoption is how difficult it was for me to get and stay pregnant. Adopting Piper has been the most surprising, wonderful blessing I've ever had. And even within Piper's adoption itself, something about knowing the difficulty of how her life started makes her smile and joy just so very sweet to me. I am in awe of her everyday, and the work I see God doing in her. I think of last night and how I attempted to read Hunter and Ella a book before bed. Piper kept diving on top of us, while giggling and snorting with delight. That's how she tackles life, just dives in and has a ball! What if we would have missed her and not known the joy of being her parents? I cannot even go there...
I remember being in China and telling God, okay, I get it...I trust you. Looking at Piper, and seeing for my own eyes how the Lord had weaved together all these strands of pain, hardship, waiting, disappointment, to create such a beautiful life, I resolved to trust Him more and fret less.