Lessons learned in the last 3 months...The Lord gives and takes

It is almost 3 months since the day the Lord took Julius home to Himself. Our world has turned upside down and I find myself on a very unfamiliar and often scary road. This is not what I imagined life would be like.

I had my own dreams and plans. They always included Julius by my side. And then without any warning and no time to process or prepare, came this sudden, terrible, life shattering change of plans.
Over these last 3 months, I have had much time to spend with God and ponder on what happened. Of course my first question was “why?” How could a loving God do this to me? Why was I singled out? God is Sovereign; He could’ve prevented this accident. Why was it so horrific? Here we were a simple immigrant family living a quiet life on a quiet street, and now we are in the eye of a storm that they warn me is going to last for many years to come. Dealing with police officers, lawyers, insurance adjusters....not the kind of people I like hanging out with!
My emotions were and still are out of control. I hate long beautiful summer weekends – they remind me of Julius and all the fun stuff we did together. How am I going to face dreary fall days, and cold winter nights? “Woe is me” and on and on...

But God...

In His Sovereign goodness and love He has drawn me closer to Him in a way that I do not believe would have been possible outside of this tragedy.
His presence is the sweetest it has ever been to me. I cherish my times in the morning with Him and He has taught me much.

Lesson # 1: we cannot have a sense of entitlement to the blessings that come from Him.
Interestingly the weeks preceding the accident, at church, we were working through a series on the book of Jonah.  God was preparing me and teaching me a powerful lesson that I was going to need in the days to come.
Quoting from the book of Jonah 4:6-10.
Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant^[a] and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. ⁷ But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”¹⁰ But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.
In this account we see that God provided the leafy plant to give Jonah shade. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father...” James 1:17
God took away the plant – it was His to give and take. Jonah’s reaction was extreme. He was angry and churlish – to the point of wanting to die.

Julius and the life we shared was a gift from God. I cannot, like Jonah be angry that God took him away so suddenly. God is sovereign- He is the owner of it all.

Loved one what are you feeling a sense of entitlement to these days? Your job that was downsized? Your health that is not so good? Your kids who are leaving the nest? The loss of loved ones? Your life that is not going as planned and imagined by you?
Unlike Jonah we must learn to praise God for His blessings when we have them. Jonah did not thank God when the leafy plant provided shade and yet he was so angry whey it was taken away. It is easy to smile at the Jonah story but how often we behave just like he did?
Dearest Reader, God is sovereign - He is the Creator and He owns it all. He also knows best and we cannot doubt His goodness to us, even when the heat is turned up in our lives. His plans and purposes will come to fruition. He is God.
I am learning to praise Him in the shade and scorching sun.