God Loves You and has a Wonderful Plan for your Life
It was a popular Christian saying during my college years. The Four Spiritual Laws. The presentation of the gospel was always supposed to start with the phrase “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” The implication was, if a person would accept Jesus into their heart, then their life would be full of goodness and light.
For most of us, if not all, this has not been the case. Life has been full of pain. Gut-wrenching pain. For me, in the context of parenting my mentally ill children, life has been full of hardship. It’s been full of ruined lives, hearts turning from God in confusion, and darkness instead of light.
Does God promise believers happy lives?
Those repeating the cliché will cite verses like Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Or Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’ ”
They ignore verses like I Peter 4:12-13 “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.” Or the beginning of Romans 5 where the Bible indicates that suffering is the source of good character. Or II Corinthians 12:10 “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” Verses that point forward to continual suffering will not be good selling points for Christianity.
But they are as true as the others.
I’ve seen hardship and suffering ruin lives. My brother has not been able to have a family. He cannot work. He spends a lot of time just being still due to schizophrenia and the effects of the medications. My husband is in constant pain, mentally and physically. My son has similar issues. So does my daughter. Where is the “wonderful plan” for their lives?
To read the rest of this post, please visit DifferentDream.com
Are you a Christian parenting an individual with mental illness? Join the Eleventh Willow private Facebook support group to meet other parents who understand. Let’s help each other walk this path.