Behind the scenes

I watched the movie "For One More Day" tonight and was forced to think about reality as we know and experience it. The main character in the movie lived his whole life with certain suppositions and understandings of the way things happened to him and his family. Yet as things converge in an unexpected tragedy, he begins to gain new insights into what was really going on. There were things he never knew and never suspected that were happening and he was protected from the truth by those who loved him.

I was reminded of my own beliefs as a twenty year old. My parents were divorced when I was ten years old. For ten years I tended to blame my father for the break up. I wasn't hostile. I just let him know in subtle ways how I disapproved of divorce and felt he could have done something to prevent it.

At twenty years old my father figured I was probably old enough to hear the truth. He began by telling me how much he wanted to stay married and the great lengths that he went to try and keep the marriage alive. Then he shared stories of my mother's alcoholism and the self destructive patterns that she engaged in and even threatened my brother and I with. A whole new picture of my young life began to emerge as I realized that he was sharing truth that I had been shielded from.

This also applies to the circumstances of life and God's role in things. Too often we view calamities as God's doing. Whenever something goes wrong from the devastation of a hurricane to the tragedy of a terrorist act we ask why God allowed it to happen. Or sometimes we even ask why God did this to us. Yet, these questions only come up because we don't know everything. The truth is that God is involved in these terrible events, but not the way we think. He is the one who picks up the pieces. He is the one who mobilizes an army of volunteers to reach out in love. He is the one who shields those who do make it through. Only when we look at it through the eyes of a mature faith do we begin to see things more clearly.

Praise God. For he is there when we need him. He is the faithful one.

Cal