God’s power brings good even out of suffering

It’s Thanksgiving, a time when many of us gather with family and friends. It’s a season of gratitude and joy. I’m sure that many of us can reflect on all that we have to be thankful for – our health, our loved ones, our freedoms, and so on. Yet, I also recognize that this day isn’t so “Norman Rockwell” for everyone. Thanksgiving comes with a complexity of emotions for many. Often people truly desire to be grateful, but it’s difficult to do so when you’re facing a new diagnosis or job loss or when “Please pass the gravy” is the extent of the civil conversation around your Thanksgiving table. Or maybe this year is the first in which there is an empty seat that was once filled by someone you loved. We are broken people living in a broken world. There is much to be grateful for, but there is no amount of pumpkin pie that can erase the pain some are feeling today. If that’s you, know that you are not alone. And let me tell you a story.

My husband grew up in Hawaii, and about ten years ago we were there visiting relatives (it’s nice to have in-laws in paradise!).  On one day of our trip, we went to visit his Uncle Doug on the volcanic side of the Big Island. As we approached his house we came to the end of the road (no, really – that’s what the sign said). It opened up into a black sea of dried lava stretching beyond the horizon. We were stopped by guards and told that we had reached the area in which it was no longer safe to drive. That’s when we mentioned that we were there to see Doug, and they let us drive on through. You see, Uncle Doug lived smack dab ON the lava.

This unique location provided him with one of the most interesting landscapes I’d ever seen. He explained that it had once been a lavish land full of vegetation, but now it was now covered in an expanse of cold lava from the most recent eruption a few years back. I imagined the magma rumbling from the belly of the volcano until it finally burst, flowing from the mount, burning and destroying inch by inch until there was nothing recognizable left in its wake.

Perhaps today you feel like your life has been in the path of a volcano. As of late, it seems the lava of death, disease, and broken relationships is flowing over a lot of people I know and care about. This flaming fluid can’t be contained. The overwhelming heat and pain are charting their unmanageable course, and it doesn’t discriminate between rich and poor or young and old.  Lives are left covered in rock and ash with no traces of the beauty that had once resided there. The agony of the burn is real.

As hard as they are, I have found that the times when the pain has been most severe, when I am crushed, broken, and burned – these tend to be the most sacred of moments in my life. In the seasons of utter despair, as the smoldering lava oozes over me, I am more drawn to my Redeemer, searching for any sort of life.

But there’s something interesting about lava rock. Did you know that over time it can turn to dirt again? And the same substance that killed and destroyed all living things brings forth minerals and nutrients spit out from center of the earth. The soil produced from the fiery volcano is richer and more fertile than that which was previously there.

And so it can be with our lives. God can bring new beauty from our pain as the soil of our souls is rich with a faith born out of the ashes. New plants, new trees, new life, new hope thrive in this fertile ground. 

If gratitude for today is too much to ask, that’s okay. You don’t have to be grateful for today’s circumstances. It’s hard to be thankful when life as you know it is covered in lava. Just acknowledge that this is where you are, but also know that God will use it to bring new life. Death does not have the final word. For that, we can be grateful.