The BIG Question

Every day we face hardships, unwanted circumstances, and health scares. We often find ourselves asking the BIG question of 'Why?'. WHY did a friend have to die so young? WHY did your spouse lose the job they loved? WHY didn't you get the job you were more than qualified for? When we start asking this question it is usually because something has happened that we had no control over. We all like to know what our future holds and how we can be better prepared for the hurdles, but then 'things' happen that we simply don't understand. Then we feel a little lost. We feel insecure.

 

But what if we tried not to focus on the WHY? What if, instead, we focused on the bigger question of 'What should I do now?' There will always be things we have no control over; things that are out of our hands.

 

Any one that knows me well, knows that I love words. I love to write, but more importantly I love to hear what people have to say. Words can tell a story. Words have the power to lift us up and tear us down. When words are good I like to remind myself of them. I have a tattered piece of paper taped to the top left corner of my computer at work that says this ...

 

'To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.' When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better. Remember that 'The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.'

 

We can't always stopped the unpleasant things in life from happening, but we can control our attitudes and how we handle the circumstances. We can let them define us and dictate what direction we will let them take us in OR we can take a deep breath, take it all in, and decide what we want to take with us from the situation. My pastor recently said on Mother's Day that some women are mothers who choose to stay home with their kids, there are mothers who try to balance work both inside and outside the home, and there are mothers who had a lousy example of what a mom was when they were growing up. He also said that those last mothers don't have to let their upbringing define them. They have the choice of breaking the cycle and changing what the next generation looks like.

 

We will always ask WHY? But we can also ask 'What should I do now?' The choice is still ours.

 

When was the last time you asked WHY? What happened next?