Behind the Scenes

    In a previous post, I expressed how irritating I find the patience of God, ironic as that sounds. One of the other irritating things about God is that He is not always a good sport about letting us see what He is doing. A lot of His work is behind the scenes. It is said that coincidence is God working anonymously, and sometimes it is so anonymous it looks like God isn't doing anything at all. Times when there is no visible interest on our prayer investment. The truth is, the Bible omits many more things than it tells. A lot of that unreported backstory is what God is doing behind the scenes. We get a rare glimpse of these divine inner workings in the story of Job, although the readers got the explanation in the preface while Job had to wait for end credits. And there is another glimpse of unseen spiritual battle in Daniel 10, where the messenger sent to answer Daniel's prayer had to call Michael for back up to battle demonic forces trying to shoot the messenger. After times of hardship, we can sometimes look back and see God's purpose in it, but we rarely truly understand God's purpose in the midst of trial.

    So even though I am baffled by why my sister and her husband will not be spending the week of their 25th anniversary at the condo in Hawaii I reserved for them many months ago, I know God has a purpose in it. My sister's 2 mm breast cancer could be dealt with after the condo week. The trip could have been a welcome respite between diagnosis and treatment. But her husband's kidney stones, surgery, and (pardon the pun) rocky recovery was not conducive with long days of flying and relying on the medical care available in rural Kauai. No one wants a kidney stone as a souvenir of Hawaii. I do not blame them for cancelling. God's message could not have been more clear if He had provided stone tablets by the bed--with Braille subtitles. 

    Spending their 25th anniversary, on May 25th, in Hawaii, sounded perfect to me and there was a a lot of prayer on my part involved in making arrangements, especially when Kauai, because of Covid, closed to travel for months. So there was nothing wrong with my motive, prayer is never wasted, and yet, there is a lovely, two bedroom condo in Princeville that will go unused. I had hoped we could go ourselves, but while calling everyone we could think of, Reed realized he had made a prior commitment to one of those everyones during that time. There is an unseen purpose for this trip cancelling, and I have finally reached the point in my life where I can put on my spiritual big girl panties and be content not knowing the reason. Because I trust God even when He's irritating, and even when He's working behind the scenes.