“Lo, I Am With You Always”

When tragedies and hardships come our way, so many of us question why?  If we look around, everybody has some kind of tragedy to overcome.  This past weekend, tornadoes and thunderstorms went through Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and the Carolinas leaving deaths and destruction.  South Carolina had some rain and some lightening but the others caught the bulk of the force.  We heard reports how the parents and children died together and how some parents died shielding their children to keep them alive.  What are we willing to go through in times of danger?  What was going through their minds being in the middle of harm’s way?  Homes and buildings were destroyed and where was God in the midst of this?  I believe that he was there and that God never leaves us.  Who am I to question God’s actions?  God’s own son was sacrificed for us and Jesus suffered some serious hardships.  How can I even begin, being created by Him, to presume I even understand why things happen?  I don’t have a clue?  I don’t think we are ever absent from God, if anything, we are absent from His love.  Even in our darkness absent of His light, God is still with us.  Somewhere and somehow along our life’s experiences when we lost our innocence, we also lost our faith and trust.  When we were children, we just knew that we would be provided for.  We didn’t always get the things that we wanted but we quickly seemed to forget it and move on to something else.  As adults, we hold grudges.  We might forgive but we can’t forget.  Even though we might have the same experience, those experiences affect us differently.  I don’t have to get into what is a positive or negative attitude, you can figure that out.  But we can agree that it might have something to do with our way of handling tragedies.  I can say this, it’s not ever easy.  That’s why we need to remember that through it all Jesus is always with us.