See the Big Picture

The big picture:
I knelt down with a heart  heavy and overwhelmed with sorrow, am torn into two, needing to ask my father for strength and yet wishing to escape. In the my years of preparation, I never thought it will be like this, the thought of what is ahead , the pain and agony and being human, wished I can be spared. I groaned out in a language no one but the only One can understand, tears streaming down my face, skin tight and hot dripping with sweat of unusual color.

I can see the bigger picture, but the now picture fills me with dread and I prayed "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done", but the cup did not pass and the reality was much more than I ever imagined or thought about. Feeling so alone despite the massive crowd around me, I strained to hear His still small voice within me but I can only hear silence. Desperate, I looked for those who usually bear me up so that I don't strike my foot against a stone but they were no where to be found. Utterly overwhelmed, I cried out 'my God, my God, why have you forsaken me!"

The above narration cannot effectively describe what Jesus went through in order to redeem us back to God, but Jesus for the joy set before him endured the cross. Have you ever felt disappointed, abandoned, unloved, and alone? Have you felt like you were shut off in a cage with no escape route or that no one cares? Did you ask yourself ' how can God's plan for me be good, when am passing through so much?'. Why is God hiding his face from me? I think God hides his face because He cannot bear to see us in so much pain but He knows that for the sake of the big picture we have to go through. So,  I encourage you to view your situation with joy. Be joyful because you see the big picture and see the One who is bigger than the big picture.

"In all their suffering he also suffered, and he personally rescued them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them through all the years". Isaiah 63:9 NLT

Testimony:

A Hope and a Future
                                                                                                                        by: Riley Banks-Snyder

A few weeks after my MRKH diagnosis, I got up the nerve to tell my friend Kassadee what was going on. I’d been isolating and withdrawing long enough, and I decided it was time to open up. After all, if anybody could help me figure out how to move forward with this thing, my best friend ranked at the top of the list.
Kassadee and I have been close since we were in elementary school. We were both in the same smallish school district growing up, where we connected over a shared love for the same kinds of books. We would swap recommendations and imagine ourselves as our favorite characters together, convinced we were just like them. It was the perfect friendship glue for two avid readers, and our book conversations are still part of what keeps us so close.
Over the years, Kassadee and I have gotten to know pretty much everything there is for two young women to know about each other. We don’t hold back on sharing details, even when they’re tough. In many ways, Kassadee has modeled that for me. Her mom has a rare disease of unknown cause that includes chronic pain. It’s a hard, ongoing struggle that affects their whole family. While I wish that the reality for Kassadee and her family was different, at the same time, I have been privileged to watch them all deal with the harsh realities of chronic illness with grace. I have seen the strength of their faith put on display as they trust God in the midst of questions and suffering. That was already inspiring to me, long before my MRKH made it something I could relate to personally.
So, as I looked ahead to a conversation with my best friend, I knew already that she’d have helpful things to say. I expected that her perspective would probably shed some light on things. And I hoped that she’d help me get to a point where I could trust God firmly again rather than spiritually swinging in the wind.
On the day of our meeting, I got to the coffee shop a little early, with time enough to claim a quiet booth in the corner. Kassadee arrived a few minutes after me. After ordering our drinks, we sat down, took one sip each, and looked at each other. For a few seconds, we both waited. Then I took a deep breath and the telling began.

I took a page out of my mom’s playbook and said the hardest thing first. “My doctors found out that I have this disease called MRKH, and it means I can’t ever have kids.” Kassadee’s initial nonverbal response was so kind and concerned that it opened the floodgates. For the next two hours, we talked about everything.
Well, at first mostly I talked and Kassadee listened. I explained how one doctor’s appointment kept leading to another and another until my diagnosis was in. Then she listened some more while I started processing things out loud, going into detail about how confused, lost, and frustrated I was.
“I just don’t understand why God would let this happen to me,” I told her. “You know how much I love kids, and I know I’d be a good mom, so why this? I see teenagers getting pregnant before they’re married, but I’m trying to obey God’s plan and I end up never being able to have kids? What did I do wrong? I mean, after all the ways I’ve tried to follow God and serve him, do I really deserve this?”
Kassadee listened patiently. I released a big sigh and continued, telling her I’d been digging into God’s Word almost insatiably, looking for an answer or some solace or a little help or just something. I told her I was spending hours in prayer and had filled pages and pages in my journal. I told her it didn’t seem like it was helping.
“I know hard things happen to everybody,” I said. “And I get that being a Christian doesn’t mean life will be easy. The thing is—I guess I just really, really don’t understand.”
With that I stopped talking.
Kassadee took a couple of sips of her hot chocolate, letting everything sink in. Then she put down her mug and leaned toward me over the table.
“Riley,” she said, “those thoughts and questions make perfect sense. I can see why you would be thinking all of that.” (I told you Kassadee knew how to be a good friend.)
For the next few minutes, Kassadee recounted some of the ways that she and her family had interrogated God over the years, wanting answers different from the ones they were getting. She acknowledged how hard it is to handle disappointment, especially when there is no reason to expect it will go away. And she told me she wanted to be an encouragement and support to me, however I need her to be.
“You know, Riley, I just keep thinking about Jeremiah 29:11: ‘For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and
not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ I keep thinking that when you were thirteen, you went all the way to the other side of the world and fell in love. God brought you to a place where there are so many orphans—so many kids without moms—and now here you are, not able to have children of your own.”
She stopped for a few seconds, as if she wasn’t sure whether she should continue. She bit her bottom lip for a moment, then shrugged slightly. “Maybe all this is happening because God is telling you something about your future. Maybe he called you to Kenya because it’s an opportunity to care for more kids than you could ever have yourself.”
There in the coffee shop, in the moment when she brought up the orphans and Kenya, it was just a whiff of an idea to me. Everything else from our conversation still felt too raw, and I was nowhere near ready to digest a new perspective. But in the days and weeks that followed, I kept hearing Kassadee’s words over and over in my head, and I started to experience them like a long, low rumble—like a quake going right down the center of me. And for the first time in a while, I started to think about the future.
________
Taken from Riley Unlikely: With Simple Childlike Faith, Amazing Things Can Happen. Learn more at Zondervan.com.

{The excerpt is a free content published by Zondervan press.}