I’ve never
been crippled by a true tragedy. I’ve had my share of scary hurts—haven’t we
all?— and some minor tragedies that felt much worse in the moment than they do
now that they’ve come and gone, but I’ve never had a true tragedy rip through
my family. We haven’t lost anyone, haven’t battled cancer, haven’t stood on a
hillside and watched our home burn to the ground or huddled up on our roof and
prayed a helicopter would reach us before water levels did.
There is
tragedy all over the world—just look at what’s happening right now! Hurricane
Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Jose, state-of-emergency fires in Montana,
and all on the heels of the terrible Charleston aftermath—and there are more
private tragedies occurring in families everywhere, everyday. Diagnoses that
drop people to their knees, a screech of tires that changes everything,
unthinkable devastation followed up with “I don’t understand it. I just looked
away for one minute.”
Each and every
time I hear or read about tragedies like these, my heart breaks a little more
for the people involved… and I wonder so much. Why them? Why was I once
again—thank you, Lord—spared? How could this happen? What if…
I think
about my own faith quite often and how it’s so easy to have faith when things
are going well… but what would my faith look like if I were plunged into a
tragedy myself? I want to think that I would stay strong. I want to think that
people would look at me with pity in their eyes and that whatever they said,
I’d have the same response—“I know God will bring good out of this. I have
faith that everything will be okay. Good, even.”
But imagining those thoughts and feeling them are two different things and all I can really do is hope I never have to find out.
I
absolutely loved Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis and very quickly devoured her
new book, Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors, in which she talks about the
way God brought her goodness in spite of a family tragedy… and in spite of the
many heartaches she’s constantly surrounded by in Uganda.
Just like
her first book, this one was wrought with emotion and filled up my heart with
peace, inspiration, and even hope. I highly recommend both books and am happy
to say that I think they work things out in your heart whether you’re in the
middle of a true tragedy or, like me, have never actually experienced anything
so significant.
I received this book from the Blogging for Books program
in exchange for this (completely honest) review.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks so much for your comments! I always read them, don't always have time to answer quickly. Sorry about that!