God is Good… All the Time?
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This past fall I attended Allume, a blogging conference for Christian women. DaySpring provided some beautiful decor for a lounge that we all enjoyed. It was in this room that I found myself constantly being drawn to one of DaySpring’s canvas prints.
And I hated it.
I couldn’t stop staring at it. It was haunting me from across the room.
The memories started flooding back…
“My worst nightmare is coming true, Rebekah.”
I sat in my kitchen stunned as I listened to my friend on the phone. Her little boy was being tested for cancer.
The test came back positive. Cancer.
Several months later I was standing next to my friend in church. She was crying during worship. I leaned over and told her, “You aren’t going to lose him, Sheryl. He is going to make it.”
I said it because I believed it. The alternative was too horrific to imagine.
Yet she did lose her son. Twice.
Conner suffered severe brain damage during his aggressive treatment and the little boy we all knew and loved vanished. He was unresponsive. He no longer made meaningful eye contact. He didn’t speak.
For months we all prayed that a miracle would happen. It didn’t.
We prayed that his parents could hear the words “I love you” one last time. They didn’t.
The reality was horrific in ways we couldn’t fathom In ways that brought us to our knees and punched us in the gut. In ways that made us scream at God.
My friends held their son in hospice as he took his last breath. It was the end of Conner’s battle, but just the beginning of theirs. How do you live a life without your child?
God is good – all the time. Was God good then?
Not even a year later another voice on the other end of the phone rocked our reality in ways that didn’t seem possible.
“The doctor couldn’t find the heart beat.”
What???
Kristen was just days away from her due date. Cohen never took a breath.
God is good – all the time. Was God good then?
The DaySpring canvas was taunting me at the conference.
It is beautiful, yet I could barely stand the sight of it.
DaySpring gave me their canvas print. I detest having it in my home, yet I know I need it here. I need to look at it. I need to believe it.
Good is good – all the time.
Some days I believe it and some days I don’t. Some days I cling to it and some days it feels like a joke.
I don’t understand why God allowed these two precious boys to die. Or why their parents have to live the rest of their lives with the chains of grief smothering them.
The truth is that we live in a broken world. God’s love for us isn’t broken. The world is broken. Bad things will happen. Terrible, horrific things will happen and the goodness of God is that He will hold us up when we no longer have the strength.
God is good – all the time.
Despite having many empty walls throughout my house, I decided to put the canvas in my laundry room. I don’t want to look at it every day. I probably need to, but it hurts too much.
Someday I hope to bring it out of the laundry room. Someday I hope I can look at it without the twinge of doubt that enters my mind every time I read “all the time.”
*sigh*
God is good – all the time.
All the time…
DaySpring would like to give a God is Good All the Time canvas print to one reader. The print measures 18×22 inches and sells for $54.99.
Do you need this art in your home? Can you say with rejoicing confidence that God is indeed good all the time? Or do the words catch in your throat like a pill that is hard to swallow?
Will you hang this art proudly in your living room? Or will you tuck it away in a space where it can’t taunt you?
Either way, this giveaway is for you. It is for the one who’s soul rejoices and it is for the one who’s soul is too tired to even cry out. This giveaway is for you. Be blessed.
Reading this in your email or RSS reader? Click over to Simply Rebekah to enter the giveaway.
Disclosure: DaySpring provided me with a canvas print to review and keep. All opinions are my own. This giveaway is open to the USA only. The winner will be chosen by random and notified by email. This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Simply Rebekah. If you enjoy reading silly fine print like this then be sure to check out my full disclosure policy.
“Terrible, horrific things will happen and the goodness of God is that He will hold us up when we no longer have the strength.”
true. I’m so thankful that we’re not expected to have the strength and that there is no deadline for regaining it either.
I quickly learned after our stillborn son Marc, that believing that ‘God is good all the time’ is the only choice to believe. When I started to think any other way, I felt frantically hopeless, and nothing had meaning. I choose to believe that God is good all the time, period. Then peace comes! Great post! Thanks for the opportunity to enter!
Thank you, Bonni. I truly appreciate your wise words. The cost of not believing that God is good is too high of a price. Thank you for the reminder!
They have so many beautiful things, but I love the “hope” print. Like “God is good all the time,” it pulls you out of yourself and back to God – even if you don’t want it to.
Great post Rebekah.
I also struggle when I hear of bad things happening to kids because I have three of my own.
I love the “Be Strong and Courageous” print. In this tipsy turvy world it is good to remember He is with us wherever we go.
I liked a lot of their prints…I’ve been suffering from a chronic illness for many years, and the battle is tough and intense. Sometimes I need those kinds of reminders…
Abby, I’m sorry to hear about your illness. I hope that God gives you the strength to carry on.
I love the “In All Thy Ways” vinyl wall art.
This is a great post too, by the way.
“the goodness of God is that He will hold us up when we no longer have the strength”
I learned this valuable lesson as I watched my dad die of cancer and then 2 years and 1 month later I watched my mom die of cancer. The last 6 years have the most difficult time in my life. But you are right, God does hold you up when you need the strength.
Michele, cancer is such a terrible, awful thing. I am so sorry you lost both of your parents to such a heartbreaking disease.
This is an age-old question that has been asked many times by us fragile humans as we struggle with life, and Yes, God IS good all the time. We are walking thru a medical issue with our son that has me crying most days, at any and multiple times a day – at a kind word, a question, a blog post on Simply Rebekah…so this is a very real question for me right now. That issue, these circumstances, our earthly human struggles do not change the fact that God is God, that my hope and any smidgen of peace on any given day comes from Him and only Him. I do not blame Him or ask why. I trust and say “thank you” for walking with me, for carrying me and for loving my son even more than I do. My job is not to understand it all, for I can not. My job is not to get angry at God, for that would cut me off from the power-source that I need now more than ever. My job IS to support my son, to love and trust my God, and to try my best to walk in His grace every day and hear Him say…”well done, good and faithful servant.”
I’d hang it. It’s haunting, and yet such a good reminder. It’s truth. We’re so finite, so incapable of seeing His bigger picture. I’d love the privilege of hanging this in my home!
I know I’m not eligible to enter but I had to leave a comment. What a great post. Right now as I type my 10 year old cousin is dying from cancer. There’s cancer in his bones, in his lymph nodes, almost everywhere. There’s nothing they can do for him, only keep him as comfortable as possible. And yet God is still good. And heaven is real. With no pain and no suffering.
Oh my, Miranda… I am so sorry about your cousin… It will be a glorious day when we are reunited with God & our loved ones and no longer live in this world filled with pain and suffering.
This world is hard! I look forward to the day when not only is God good but so is everything else.
I like the wall art that says “He makes EVERYTHING beautiful in it’s time”
I like the Pillar Mug that quotes Ecclesiastes 3:11 (http://www.dayspring.com/everything_beautiful_pillar_mug/). That verse has been a huge encouragement to me over the last several years as I experienced the loss of pregnancies and my firstborn. Life is hard, but God will make even the hardest experiences beautiful in His own time.
That is a beautiful mug. I love the little butterfly on the bottom.
I admire your strength, Joan. Thank you for being an example to us all.
I liked the Mr. & Mrs. – Many Thanks – 10 Note Cards.
I really like the way you grapple with this topic. I think the words catch in my throat, since Cohen. Since other hard things in life. I have to stop and sort it out in my mind so I can come back to yes, God is good. All the time.
I was the one who had to make the phone call, telling our families that the doctor couldn’t hear our daughter’s heartbeat just 4 days before she was due.
I love the canvas art, “For I know the plans I have for you”. It reminds me that His plans are perfect, even if we don’t understand they whys. His plans are for good – our good, and His glory.
Thank you for a very throughout-provoking post.
Oh Paula… I am so sorry to hear about your stillbirth. Too many parents have felt this pain.
Someday we will see the world through God’s eyes. What a glorious day that will be.
I like the found and treasured mug.
I am one of those who struggles with this promise. It’s not that I won’t believe it, that I don’t believe it, but that I am looking hard to see it. I am so desperate for all His promises to be true in my life. I want our loss, as painful as it is (2.5 years later) to be full of God’s glory, not full of sadness. How I know that He IS good all the time is because He is the Great I Am. He is The Redeemer. There will be a day when He will make ALL things new and there will be no more tears. Such a loving God that He will do that not just for Himself in His plan, but for us too. He has all our tears in a bottle.
Some day our life hear on Earth will seem as short as the blink of an eye. Everything will be clear and the pain will be gone, but in the mean time the wait feel soooooooo long. I hope that we can both feel God’s love as we desperately wait for Him.
Thanks for your post and your honesty. Yes, God is good all the time although we may not always understand what He is doing.
I like Redeemed – His Eye Is on the Sparrow-Wooden Birdhouse