Bad things happen in this troubled world. Not a profound statement in the least, especially considering the events of the last day. And more personally for all of us I am certain, in the last month, in the last years, in our lifetimes, and even before that. Bad things happen and they unsettle us, make us question ourselves, our neighbors, our world view, and if we’re brutally honest, even our God. Bad things happen in this broken world and what on earth do we do with that?

I’ve questioned this so many times since my husband of fifteen years, the father of my children, died suddenly in 2016. I’ve questioned it as I’ve watched people close to me suffer from alcoholism, addiction, health issues, injuries, and even smaller things like losing first loves, bad grades, a no answer I didn’t want to accept. Why do these things happen and what do I do with them?

Things were never meant to be this way. This seemingly broken way. This way where bad things happen to a beautiful world, to all people whether we classify them as good or bad. Things were simply never meant to be this way when this world was created and for a short time things were only blissful. Perfect and clean and full of light and love. But for anything to be perfect it cannot be forced, right? The freedom that comes with perfection is a giant responsibility and sometimes we just don’t get it right. Sometimes out of that freedom come things that look so bad we simply don’t want to accept them.

So back to my question, what do we do with these bad things? How do we feel ok for world, ourselves, our kids, our loved ones to come? When things happen that we certainly would have never chosen for ourselves?

Romans 8:28 “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

This verse challenges me every day. Yet after what seems like much suffering, God proves Himself over and over again to my doubting heart. While I never would have raised my hand for some of the things that have happened in my life, when I really look hard at them, inspect them to find the beauty, it inevitably emerges. Along with the hard things came things I never could have achieved on my own nor even imagined. My incessant desire for control has been broken little by little as I realize no matter how hard I strive for it I simply cannot achieve total control of my little world. And in it is left a growing feeling of freedom I didn’t know could exist. I’ve watched myself and my kiddos become braver and stronger than we ever would have been had we never had to do hard things. People have come into our lives that we’ve touched and have touched us deeply that we likely would’ve never encountered. Faith has grown as our God carried us when we could barely walk and never let go as we took tentative steps again. Beauty has emerged from the brokenness even though we never ever believed it was possible. In the midst of the awfulness it’s there. It just needs time and space and willingness to look hard for it and embrace it.

On this morning when the world is reeling from another bad thing happening, the only way I can feel more settled is to choose to hold tighter to the God who never let’s go of me. The one who makes beauty emerge from the badness. The one who can take this bad thing He never intended for us and somehow bring good from it. Maybe it looks like change. Change for things that seem stubborn and unchangeable. Maybe it looks like introspection. Introspection that reveals things we can do in ourselves and our own little worlds that bring us back to light and love. Maybe it looks like tenderness. Tenderness toward the ones we so vehemently disagree with. Who knows what it looks like this morning as we wake up and embrace our freedom and choose to dig for the beauty in the brokenness, clinging tighter to our God that can help us find it.

So this morning I pray for us to find the beauty. To dig and scrape and lift it out and up. To know that it’s there, although maybe we just can’t see it yet. To be determined to know it, speak it, and be it. Let’s do that with this bad thing. Let’s work to be better than it and drown it out with all the light and love we can muster.

Yes. Let’s choose to do that.