Taste and See

I have been thinking of this song so much lately.  I don't actually listen to radio a lot, but I still hear it fairly often, and I have to admit that I love it.  Many people reference this song as giving hope for the future - that God has a plan, despite the pain or trials they're currently facing.

For me, though, it's the story of God's faithfulness through the past few years of my life.

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

I did all that.  I prayed for family - probably not in the way she means, but we prayed, begged, and pleaded with God for a family.  We prayed for healing from infertility.  During cancer, I prayed often for him to ease my suffering.

But the reason it's so important to not just tell God what we want, but to also ask that His will be done, is because he knows more than we do.  He has the bigger picture in mind.  And he loves us too much to give us anything less than his best.

'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long we'd have faith to believe

That last line of this verse hits me every time - God longs for us to trust him, to have the faith to believe in his plan.  It's so humbling to me every time I remember that the God of the Universe desires for me to trust him.  Why is it that we still struggle with trusting a Sovereign God?  I am so thankful that he is patient with me when I falter.

...'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

One of the greatest disappointments in my entire life was finding out that I would not be able to have biological children. The depth of heartache that I felt would take 10 more posts to describe, but for the moment, I will simply say that it was devastating.


Absolutely gut-wrenching.

But with that intense pain came an opportunity.  A chance to see God's goodness, and an opportunity to trust him.    To trust that the depth of God's love was far more encompassing than the depth of my pain.

If we had babies when we wanted them, if I hadn't gone through all that I had, we wouldn't have Isaac now.  And I wouldn't trade Isaac for anything.  I wouldn't give him up even if it meant that I could go back and erase all the nauseating infertility treatments or the excruciating rounds of chemo.  

But even beyond the immeasurable blessing of having a son, I can truly attest to the fact that "our greatest disappointments," and "the aching of this life," revealed a greater thirst for Christ.  I have experienced pain, experienced loss, and through it all, found that knowing Christ gives me more joy than I can ever describe.

It is a blessing to be able to say that I know that God is good - that his mercies are there, and that he is faithful, and that His love is perfect, even if I don't see how it all fits together right there in that moment.

This song came on in the car yesterday when Isaac was with me, and when he asked what it was about I tried to explain it to him - that even when hard things happen, sometimes those are the same things that God uses in our lives because he loves us, and he has a plan for us.  Then I told him (again) how Dave and I prayed so long for someone to love in our lives, and that having him in our family was just one more way God showed us how much he loves us.

It got really quiet in the backseat.  I peeked back there, to find him with a funny look on his face.

"What are you thinking about?," I asked.
"Just wondering when you're going to stop talking."
"Why do you want me to stop?"
"Because you're making my eyes leak, because I'm just so happy!"
"Me too bud.  God is good!"