70. It’s Not How It Looks
Last Tuesday, I had to take my first daughter Luyah to the emergency room after school. While she was playing in her classroom, she fell and got a deep cut under her chin. When I saw the wound, it was clear that she needed stitches because the cut area was pretty wide. Once we got to the ER, we had to wait about 3 hours to see the doctor. Luyah was hanging in strong. Until she saw the needle.
I always knew she was afraid of the needle, as all kids do. But this time, she was freaking out. A nurse put an anesthetic cream already but I guess the doctor wanted to make sure the area was numb. The doctor tried to calm her down at first but to no avail. He had to call for nurses to hold her down. I had to put a pressure on her body to keep her from moving, while other nurses held her arms and legs.
She was crying and looked at me as if I betrayed her. Her look seems to say, “why are you not letting me move?” At the moment, I really wished she would know that it’s not how it looks. I had the best of her interest in mind. But she didn’t seem to agree at the moment.
After all was done, I took her to the corner and assured her everything will be ok. And I took that moment to teach her to believe in daddy and the doctor next time. Glad she nodded.
As I was watching how Luyah had hard time judging the situation, it reminded me that we do not have the capacity to understand fully what happens in our lives at the moment. We might feel tempted to lose faith in God because of what is happening but it’s just not how it looks.
Christian faith hinges on who, not what. Regardless of what is happening, Jesus is our saviour, redeemer, comforter, counsellor, and helper. There will be moments in our lives when we feel betrayed by God. But it is important for us to acknowledge that we do not have all the answers to why things happen at the moment.
That is why what we need to hold on to is that God is good and faithful despite how our situations look. Jesus’ death and resurrection proves that. The grave looked like the end of a movement Jesus started . But in three days, the empty grave became the cornerstone of the Jesus movement which spread to all over the world, bringing hope to those whose life look bleak. Jesus is our hope and he now cannot die.
