Puking, Weeping, and The Bigger Picture

I'm sitting on my bed listening to the wailing cries of my 2 year old. She has had a tummy bug this weekend and I thought it was just about over when she up-chucked right into her plate at Cracker Barrel tonight. Sorry. But that's what happened. Afterward she acted perfectly fine and so I gave her more to drink and even let her have a biscuit (dumb!) and then she threw up again, this time in the car. I hate these viruses. Ugh.

She was still pretty perky even after all that but I knew that to give her little tummy a rest and if we were going to get even a few hours of sleep, she had to go down without drinking anything. Well, that's kind of tough for her, especially when she's not feeling 100%. So we rocked and sang and  I told her what was going to happen about the "ba-ba"--that there wouldn't be one.  Then I put her in her bed and shut the door.

And now, like I said, I'm in my room listening to the unbearable sound of her screaming and crying. Even though I know she is going to be fine and that I am doing the best thing for her, it still breaks my heart to hear her cry like that. My natural response is to go give her whatever she is pleading for, but I know that I can't do that because it is not what's best for her. I know this. She doesn't; she is two. I even tried to explain it to her, but that didn't matter. She is not capable of understanding.

This is a picture of what is happening when we are crying out to the Lord and thinking He's not answering. We're not understanding. We desperately want relief. He has told us that this is what's best, but we don't get it. We can't, fully. He's still there, he's hearing us even though we can't see Him, but it seems like He's not there. What we have is a fleshly desire to be relieved of something--a situation, an emotion, a life that is not turning out like we had envisioned.

If the thing we are asking for is not specifically being granted, we can be sure that our Father, our Creator, who loves us in a much grander way than anyone else in the universe is capable of,  knows that there is a greater need to be met than what we want. He cares enough not to bring us the milk we are begging for, that in truth would actually make matters worse. The thing that will bring Him GLORY the most--that is what's best for us and that is His plan. There is absolutely nothing that can stop that kind of Love. Not even our cries.

We do know that Jesus is compassionate and he is sensitive to our cries. In fact, in John Chapter 11 we read that "Jesus wept" as he witnessed dear friends mourning the loss of Lazarus, who was also a friend of his. It also says that Jesus was "deeply moved in spirit and troubled" in this situation. It wasn't because Lazarus was dead that Jesus wept and was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled. He knew that he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, for crying out loud! The reason He wept is because he shared in the passion, the suffering, that His people were experiencing. And he still does.

The closest thing I personally have to compare to the compassion that Jesus has is the way I feel each time that I know my child is hurting and there is nothing I can do to help them in their present pain that would be beneficial. So I suffer with them but I stay focused on the bigger picture.

One day we'll understand why our Father lets us cry. In the meantime: "we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." Romans 8:28-30

When we are glorified and with The Father--then I'm pretty sure we'll be okay with all the crying.