I just received a letter from a friend. On the back of the small, crumpled envelope was a purple scrawl stating, “When you forget what God has done, it’s hard to see what he can do.” To some, this may seem like an average statement or a typical cliche. To us, however, this sentence encompasses an entire reality.
Merely five months ago our worlds were rocked by the death of Rachel’s youngest sister in a tragic car accident. Most of Rachel’s family was in the car during the accident, along with one of my sisters. Because of this, the circles of people involved were widened.
I read one time that after seven years of friendship that you would be friends for a lifetime. If that is the case, our families reached that point years ago. Rachel’s father was our pastor when I first moved to PA fifteen years ago. Since then our families have been close friends, no matter where life finds each family.
Our families spent a week and a half together after the car accident while healing and adjusting.
The summer months that followed were filled with ups and downs in their own ways. New friends, crushes, jobs, school, and much more came at us with everything else that we were trying to process. In the midst of the pain and the life that kept on living, we were forced to make choices in regards to how we viewed God during this time. I remember when Rachel talked to her dad on the phone a mere couple of hours after the car accident. Her father has been a pastor for longer than I can remember, and even in the midst of being in the accident, one daughter dying and one in the ICU, he still stated with all certainty, “God is still good.”
I wish that Grace had more years on this earth. I hate that at twelve years old my sister lost her best friend. But I know without a doubt that God is using Grace’s legacy in astonishing ways. Even while we spent most of our time sitting in many hospital waiting rooms, we were having opportunities to talk about Grace’s joy and confidence in knowing her Jesus as savior.
We had peace and comfort in knowing that Grace was in a much better place, and was with our perfect, loving God. A family member remembered and unburied a video from many years before 2016. Four years ago, Grace sang this song reminding those who heard it then, as well as her hurting family and friends, that she had always been on a journey toward her heavenly home.
As we laughed and cried together, God continued to remind us of his sovereignty and goodness through videos, pictures, letters, and many other items that we found. Her dad covers even more in the message that he gave at her service, but he also gave a challenge to not turn away from the God that has been faithful. Like the quote illustrates, if we don’t look back at how God has taken care of us in the past, it will be extremely difficult to believe that he is still caring for us.
Exodus reminds us of how the Israelites lost sight of what God could do. Although they had been first-hand witnesses of miracles, they still wanted to return to the comfort of slavery because not knowing the future was more uncomfortable of a situation than most of the Israelites wanted to be in. While we adamantly refuse to think that we would make the same choice as the Israelites, we doubt God’s faithfulness just like they did.
“When you forget what God has done, it’s hard to see what he can do.”
Remember when God has been faithful, and cling to those moments in the darkest of times.
Originally posted on Odyssey.
