So you know when your kids are small you're pretty much in control of their life experiences? There is a sense of comfort in knowing that you personally are making sure your kids are safe and that any outside influences are, for the most part, controlled by you as a parent.

Then it's time to let them go to school, gulp, and trust that others will keep them safe and watch out for them. However you can no longer control what kinds of worldly experiences your children will encounter in any given day inside the confines of the school. You are thrilled when they come home with great stories of wonderful friendships and adventures. On the flip side though your heart aches when they come home in tears because someone wasn't so kind to them.

As followers of Christ we pray that God will be there because we can't, that God will watch over and protect our children. That He will keep them safe, that the bullies and the mean girls of this world will leave our children alone. That somehow our children will walk through the halls of their schools, grade school on up, unscathed by all the evil that sin has brought into this world.

Rarely though does that happen.....

Often times the travesties are things that can be overcome, talked out or ignored. However, sometimes the evil in the world comes storming through big, and loud and painfully and no matter how hard you try, it can't be over looked or forgotten, you can't wish it away or pretend it didn't happen. How do we deal with this? How do I deal with this??

To back up a bit, when my oldest daughter was a freshman in high school she was raped, at school, during after school hours. She didn't share this information with us until she was a freshman in college, therefore ways we might have dealt with this had we known at the time it happened were not an option for us.

In the past year I have really struggled with why did God allow this to happen? I know He was there with her, He told me so. Yet He did nothing to stop it. I know all the reasons in my head, I know that He can work all things for the good of those who love Him. I know that we have freewill and we make our own choices. I know that she will now have a testimony to share with others and that God can choose to use her experiences to share His glory with others. I'm also now painfully aware how empty those words can seem having to struggle through this personally.

In my search for answers and ways to get past this, because I am not okay with feeling or thinking this way, I found a video tonight by Perry Noble who talks about having a child like faith. Something that can be so hard to achieve. Something he said really resonated with me. You know how when your child gets to be somewhere between 2-3 no matter what answer you give your child or how many times you rephrase it or change your words, no matter what your answer is, the child will look at you and say "why"? Many times our answers are what they are because we can see the bigger picture and the child can't. We see what is ahead or we have experience with the outcome of a particular situation that the child whose never experienced those things has no reference for, therefore, cannot understand why our answer is as it is.

We as Christ followers are referred to as children of God, not adults of God. This makes me think that maybe just maybe when I'm asking why, God is telling me an answer that I cannot completely understand because I cannot see the bigger picture. I don't know what's ahead, I haven't experienced it and I have no point of reference for it.

So thankfully, I have now come to a place that I will no longer question God with my "why", and trust that He knows what the whole picture is, what the greater plan is. It's not going to be easy, and I will have to capture thoughts daily and have to pray through this continually. At least now I have come to a place where I have some peace with this.

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior. Habakkuk 3:18