Sometimes we don’t recognize God’s goodness because He doesn’t work the way we think He should. Check out this offering of praise (posted with the author’s permission):
Thank you Lord for sheltering me when I was scared and alone.
You brought me through, not safely… no, quite the opposite!
You brought me through the dangerous passage and placed me in harm’s way
So that stubborn me would begin to grasp the magnitude of the work you were doing.Just when I would try to retreat to safety in the belly of the ship,
You threw me up into the crows nest to see the gale first hand,
To feel the salt spray sting my wind burned face.
Just as I would begin to run a race,
You would cripple me so that I would have to crawl.Lord, to those who have never known these blessings,
It must sound as though I am bitter,,, and that I have every right to be.
But, I know no other way that you could have taught me to relate
So intimately to the suffering of others.I have been blessed to learn how to better be compassionate.
Sympathy, empathy, compassion,
How to eat crow.
If I had not suffered,
These things I wouldn’t know
– Mike Lanter
When the Lord says:
“Do you see what I’ve done? I’ve refined you, but not without fire. I’ve tested you like silver in the furnace of affliction. Out of myself, simply because of who I am, I do what I do.” (Isaiah 48:10,11a, The Message),
we can only respond, “Thank you, Lord!”
What else is there to say?