When Things Go Wrong

What Great Fellowship We Enjoyed In Our Years Downeast

Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.  He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.  Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.  Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; do not fret—it only causes harm.  From Psalm 37 (NKJV)

There are times in everyone's lives when we are tempted to look at our circumstances and forget the standing that we have as Christians. Probably one of the things that has hurt us the most was when we found it necessary to leave our home where we lived from 1965 to 2004. We were only twenty-one when we moved to Marshfield. Our roots were deep. Our friendships were cherished. And though a house is just a building, the memories those four walls represented were precious to us. That is where we lived with our six children. We loved our Church and the broader Christian community downeast. We did not want to leave our comfortable life and go into the unknown.

But God had different plans. At the age of sixty, change is difficult. We have often said that the Lord dragged us away from our familiar surroundings and beloved people "kicking and screaming". We really were frightened about the process of moving, settling down, finding friends and seeking a new Church. But we found that  even amid the pain and uncertainty that kept trying to overcome us, there was a deep-seated knowledge that GOD loves us; He never makes a mistake; we can trust Him when all else seems to fail; and He gave us His peace.

We have called Psalm 37 "The Buza Psalm" because we have turned to it over and over again when we begin to doubt and fear. It serves to remind us that God has always been generous to us. He has never failed us one time and we know that He isn't about to start failing us now. God always has our best interest at heart as He continues to work in our lives with the goal of changing us into the people that He created us to be. At times we have not rested in the Lord. We have resisted Him. We have questioned Him. We have not waited patiently at times, but we have depended on our own self effort.

We talk about our experience over the last nine years and we have decided that formerly we were happy with our circumstances. We were pleased in our selves, our good profession, and a reasonable income. Our plan was to live, die, and be buried right where we were planted. In other words we think we were too comfortable. We think we were trusting too much in ourselves and too little on God. We were forgetting that "we are weak, but He is strong."

One lesson that we have learned is that "when things go wrong", they may actually be going right. We have seen time and time again why it is right for us to be here. We have probably learned more compassion for others -- I hope so. We have definitely learned not to put our roots too deeply. We have this moment, but we do not know what may happen in the next one. Only the Lord knows what tomorrow will bring. It may be great joy or great sorrow. But His plan is perfect. It is always for our good. We can trust Him with a great deal of confidence. We must remind ourselves and each other of that from time to time because we forget too easily.