Cafe Chat

On August 15, 1964 Helen Roseveare was beaten, humiliated, and raped by a truckload of brutal soldiers. She barely survived and had to be taken from the Congo. During her very painful recovery she found herself closer to God than ever before, and she even longed to go back to the Congo more than ever. (Up to this point I have paraphrased what David Jeremiah has written, and now I will take up with direct quotes to finish up the story).

“There was no bitterness within her, though Helen had experienced terrible, mindless evil. It would have been so easy to demand of God why He allowed these atrocities, when she had been so faithful to His service. But in her heart of hearts, she felt that God’s question would be, “Can you thank Me for trusting you with this experience, even if I never tell you why?”

That question stopped me in my tracks, and for today’s Chat I would like to hear your thoughts about this question…Of course this is the question that Helen felt like God was asking her, but I think it is a good question for all of us to ponder.

I wanted to also participate in the Cafe Chat today, though I will have a hard time answering the question. This question reminds me of the questions asked in “The Shack,” which is a wonderful book if you have never read it. In a past post I talked about being in the darkness with God, but it was because I could not find Him. That is as Beth Moore calls it in her new Esther video, Session 1, “a fate worse than death.” I think the most difficult thing one can experience is the absence of God’s presence when you have been so close to Him. With that said, I do wonder just how I would react to suffering of this kind – the sudden death of my children or my husband, getting sick while the children are young, etc.

I want to trust God in all things, and having experienced the withdrawal, so to speak, of His presence, I realized that He is exactly who He says He is. He is a good God even if I cannot feel Him. He is my very breath and sustenance. Without Him and only Him, I am nothing. Nothing else defines me, even my children and husband. God is in control all the time, and even when Satan gets his foot in our door with a hurt of this magnitude, how awesome our response is when we trust in Christ and do not allow Satan a victory by graveling or blaming God. These experiences are the fire that purifies us as in 1 Peter 1:6-7, “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

All that to say, I doubt I would be so trusting, but I certainly hope that through God’s power I would be.