Looking back...

puts looking forward into greater perspective. Looking back doesn't have to be painful or guilt bearing; it doesn't have to bring back bad memories of things you wished you never did or things you wished never happened. They did. But life goes on. God (in time) heals you. If you allow Him to. Most of the time it won't be scar-free, but the pain is gone and although a scar remains, it only exists to remind you of God's power and grace.

Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us;
he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.
-- Hosea 6:1

Sometimes we blame God for our hurt and pain. We blame him for the bad things that happen in our lives or to those we love. I suppose as humans, it seems only logical to blame God because we know he could've prevented it. We know he is all-powerful and can, with one command, tell the storm to calm down. Or even, diminish it altogether. But he doesn't (or didn't) and for that, we blame him. Perhaps even resent him for it.

And we miss the whole point of the hurt and the pain, of the 'bad' things, the relentless storm.

I don't believe God is to blame for the bad things that happen to us. But perhaps because we naturally blame him, Hosea's words echo rightly in our minds: "God, you've injured us!" So God accepts that we blame him (because, stubbornly, we persist in that), but what does he tell us? "I can heal you. Let me heal you." He allows the hurt and the pain, the suffering and even the resentment, only to be the One to heal us from it. So that we can see that only He can truly bind up our wounds.

We will never, truly and clearly, understand God. He is beyond understanding, beyond what we can fathom, or even imagine. That otherness of God is cause for worship, for a deep surrender to the things of God and to God himself. But I love him for his mystery, for his love that I know and experience through Christ, for making every effort to show me that He is a God of real love. Even if that includes my hurt and pain in the process.