Every Experience

Corrie Ten Boom once said:

“Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for a future only He can see.”

This coming from a woman who suffered for her heart for others. She and her family sheltered and allowed their home to become refuge for many Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. For their actions, her entire family was taken and imprisoned at Ravensbrück concentration camp, near Berlin. Many died, including her sister.

Her thoughts indeed make me think.

Throughout my life people have come…and people have gone. Some have been brief encounters, others not. Some have brought me joy and encouragement, others have not. Some of the experiences have proven pleasant, some have proven down right ugly!

But they all have a purpose. The Father uses them to teach me something, if I will allow myself the benefit of the lesson. Often times I miss it. Often times I would prefer not to learn it. But I have come to realize that it is often that lesson I prefer not to learn that is the very lesson He is wanting me to gain wisdom from…

His ways are always higher than our ways.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9

We might be hurt by someone. It might be our choice to have avoided them altogether. But what have we learned? Could we possibly have become more compassionate about people as they deal with circumstances that only He can understand?

Can we actually ask for the Father’s eyes to see someone from His vantage point? I have often prayed this and the Father answers the prayer with an understanding that can only be from Him.

This is not to suggest we stick around so that people can hurt us constantly. But it is a suggestion that once we find ourselves around people and experiences that we might rather not have…we stop and trust Him with it.

Corrie’s sister,Betsie, died on December 16, 1944. Before she died, she told Corrie, “There is no pit so deep that He [God] is not deeper still.”

This should bring us encouragement…and the beauty of realizing that the Father gets it…and always will.

~Be Blessed

IN CHRIST ALONE