Tag: The Cross

Tragedy: When We Just Don’t Understand Why

On By Carmen2 Comments

The news of the flood in Kerrville, Texas, has been very difficult to watch and very emotional for many of us. I kept thinking why, LORD, why did this have to happen to so many unsuspecting people enjoying time in a scenic place of relaxation and recreation?

It is especially heart-breaking to know that so many young girls were lost at a summer camp that was supposed to bring them joy and lasting memories of their childhood.

I can’t imagine the pain the family members of the victims are feeling, but I am certain that they have the same question—WHY?

My goal is not to place blame on any agency or the government. Hopefully in time, these much-needed answers will come, and regulations will be put in place so that an effective notification system will be employed to warn those in the path of any future similar disaster.   

Today, I want to be able to share hope with the victim’s families so they have something to hold on to that will give them a sense of peace about their loved ones who they sadly lost.

I am writing this also for anyone who has tragically lost a loved one and needs to know that they can live again despite the tragedy; they can let go and trust God; they can smile and laugh again; they can be reunited with their loved ones.

First, I do not know why such tragedies happen. What I do know for certain is that we live in an imperfect world with sin, evil, and death.

I also know that God is good and is very much in control. He is not the author of destruction and pain, but of love and life.

When I start to question why in certain circumstances, my mind goes to Job in the Bible. The Book of Job is 42 chapters in length and deals with tragedy, despair, a search for answers, temptation to curse God, unwavering devotion to God, and hope.

I will give you the short version of the Book of Job, but I highly recommend you read it for yourself.  

Job was a wealthy man, good and honest. He was loved by God who spoke very highly of him to Satan. Satan wanted to prove God’s assessment of Job wrong and asked for permission to exasperate Job so that he would curse God. God’s only restriction was that he could not kill Job.

Job lost his children, his wealth, and his health. As if this weren’t enough, he was insulted by his friends who came to see him. They suggested that he (and his children) had unconfessed sin which led to these tragedies.

Job maintained his innocence and throughout his suffering questioned God as to why all this hardship when he had been a good man and served God.

His wife even told him to just get it over with, curse God, and die!

Job would not curse God, because he knew God was good. He said that he would go to his grave believing such and that he would indeed bless God!

All Job could do was ask God why he had to endure this tragedy and curse. He said that it would’ve been better that he was never born to have to go through all of this.  

He just didn’t understand why.

Eventually God spoke to him and his friends. God rebuked his friends for assuming they had the answers. And God answered Job with a lengthy discourse of questions (Chapters 38–42).

Some of the questions (there were many) God asked Job that resonate with me are:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding,
Who set its measurements? Since you know.
Or who stretched the measuring line over it?
On what were its bases sunk?
Or who laid its cornerstone?” Job 38:4-6

“Can you raise your voice to the clouds,
So that an abundance of water will cover you?
Can you send flashes of lightning, so that they may go
And say to you, ‘Here we are’?” Job 38:34-35

“Can you drag out Leviathan with a fishhook,
And press down his tongue with a rope?
Can you put a rope in his nose,
And pierce his jaw with a hook?
Will he make many pleas to you,
Or will he speak to you gentle words?
Will he make a covenant with you?” Job 41:1-4

Job could not answer any of these questions and neither can we.

We can only trust God and continue to believe that His plan is best—even when it hurts.

As time passes, we may look back and discern some good that came from the tragedies we experience or we may understand partly why, but we will know completely when we get to Heaven.

God understands your pain and distress and He sympathizes with you. He will show you how to live your next moments, days, months, and years.

He knows the pain you feel. He watched His only Son, Jesus Christ, die on the cross for all mankind. It was a painful experience for Him, but it was necessary for us to receive eternal life.

I believe that Jesus was present in the flood in Kerrville, Texas, and all the little girls who died in this flood were received instantly into His loving arms. Jesus loved children and He took these to a better place where there will be no more death, evil, pain, or sorrow. They are happy and they are waiting for the day they can be reunited with their beloved family and friends.

I also believe that all of the age of accountability who died in Christ were also received instantly into our Savior’s arms.

I will go a step further.

I believe God gave any that were unsaved another opportunity in the flood waters to surrender to His Son Jesus Christ. Perhaps there were some who turned to the LORD in their despair before they died.

Below is a scripture verse that I hold onto for all my family and friends who are not saved.

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

For all of you who are struggling and hurting because of the loss of a relative or friend in this heartbreaking tragedy, please know that one day there will be a great reunion filled with joy and laughter with those you lost in the LORD.

He knows your pain, give it to Him. He understands your questions, your grief, your anger.

Let Jesus heal your heart. Trust Him with your unanswered questions until He either shares some insight with you through the Holy Spirit or He reunites you with them when He calls you home to be with Him.

As I have been following the many stories regarding this flood, I came across a mother who lost her beautiful 8-year-old daughter while at Camp Mystic.  

Her outlook is exactly what I wish to convey in this message.

Lindsey McCleod McCrory lost her daughter, Blakely McCrory, while at Camp Mystic and described her daughter as a “’live wire’ with a ‘fun, spirited attitude’ and ‘the type of child that doesn’t stay down for long.’”

She said, “I’m just so grateful to keep her spirit alive.”

McCleod McCrory continued, “And we strongly believe that it happened quickly. She didn’t have to suffer. I just have this feeling. She’s with all those campers and staff who died, and other children. I just imagined it as a happy place, a peaceful place.”

Wow! What faith this mother has!

McCleod McCrory has had her share of tragedy lately.

She lost her husband, Blake McCrory, at age 59 to a battle with cancer recently. She also lost her brother (also 59 years old) earlier this year.

What strength! I believe it comes from deep within due to her faith in Jesus Christ.

I am praying for those who have had to deal with such a tragedy in their lives who are hurting and searching for answers.

May God bless you and grant you the peace that surpasses all understanding. May you have joy again and continue to live your life with hope and meaning—just as the ones you lost would want you to.

Below is one of my all-time favorite Christian songs that I hope will bring you consolation as you listen.

If you want to have a relationship with God and are not sure how or where to start, see my previous posts Relationship with God and Relationship with God – Part 2.

The Greatest Love of All

On By CarmenLeave a comment

When you think about love, who or what comes to mind as your greatest love?

Maybe it’s your spouse, your child, or maybe even your parents or grandparents. Some might even say their dog or pet is their greatest love.

Let me ask you another question. How do you measure love?

Is it the simple satisfaction of being loved back by the person you love so much?

Or is it your ability to consistently love someone even though that individual has brought you much pain and rejected your love?

I’m sure there are different responses based on varied experiences.

For this post, I would like to focus on one love that we all have been given, and it is the greatest love we could ever experience.

Greater love has no man than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13

This verse in the Bible is Jesus speaking to his apostles and it is the very thing that Jesus did for them and for all of us.

He willingly laid down His life for all mankind—past, present, and future.

He died for us on a cross—one of the most humiliating ways a person could die. He was crucified, a death that was normally reserved for criminals.

Jesus died for us because…

He was obedient to His Father.

He was sent to this world for this very reason.

He was the ultimate sacrificial lamb.

He told the truth about who He is.

He challenged and exposed the evil and lies of those in religious authority.

He socialized with the so-called outcasts—the lower class, the sinners, and the sick. 

He had a large following which caused fear and jealousy by the religious “elite.”

He loved us—all of us—past, present, and future, even though we are sinners.

He knew He was the only way for us sinners to reunite with our heavenly Father.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.

John 14:6

I believe Jesus loves us because He knows that we are deceived by Satan, just as Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden.

He sympathizes with us in our failed condition, but He does not want to leave us there.

He wants us to overcome this world’s lies and ways.

He wants us to be like Him, and He has shown us how to respond and act in every circumstance that we could encounter.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their wrongdoings against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. . .He made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

A very good dramatization of Jesus’s life is The Chosen by Angel Studios. If you haven’t yet seen the episodes of The Chosen, I encourage you to do so.

My husband and I just saw The Last Supper at the movie theater this past Saturday evening. It is a great rendering of Jesus’s last days. I admired His strength to speak truth to the religious authorities, even though it meant His demise.

Jesus could have avoided such controversy by succumbing to the threats against His life, but He did not because He had a greater mission to complete—death on the cross for all mankind.

He is the propitiation for our sins, He is the ultimate sacrifice, and He is active in our lives, waiting for all those who surrender their lives to Him to rejoin Him in Heaven with our Father.

Why Heaven?

Some may say that life in the here and now is good enough, so why desire Heaven?

The answer is simply that we were not intended to live separated from God. We were always supposed to be with God just as Adam and Eve walked and talked with God before they sinned against Him.

Their sin separated them from Holy God and caused them to be cast out of the Garden of Eden.

Our sin also separates us from God, so we need The Perfect Lamb to restore us to God. This Lamb is Jesus.

A Better Life on Earth

This life on earth may be all we have ever known, but there is a better life waiting for those who follow Christ, now and for eternity.

Life as we know it on Earth will be gone one day.

We are told this by God Himself in the Bible, narrated by the apostle John.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give water to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life, without cost. The one who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. 

Revelation 21:1-7

Now this is something to look forward to!

We will be with the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ, who are righteous and just!

No more lies or being maltreated!

No more tears, no more pain, no more illness, no more death!

And a new healthy earth to live on!

As we approach this Easter season, let’s turn our hearts and minds to the true meaning of it all.

Jesus Christ was crucified AND resurrected back to the Father where He is waiting for all of those who will choose Him over this world.

He paid for all our sins by dying for us and paved the way back to our heavenly Father.

This is the greatest love of all time.

Let’s praise our Savior Jesus Christ with the beautiful song below.

The Lamb (Alleluia) – John Wilds

Money – Blessing or Curse?

On By CarmenLeave a comment

I’ll start by writing that that there is nothing wrong with being wealthy because God does give wealth to people. A great example of God’s benevolence is to King Solomon. He told King Solomon to ask Him for whatever he wanted. Because he asked for wisdom to govern His people, God told him he would not only give him wisdom, but He would also make him the wealthiest king ever. See 2 Chronicles 1 for the full story. God is indeed generous.

Many of us are not wealthy; some are middle class, some are poor. We are what we are because of God’s will and also because of our own choices. Wherever we are, the apostle Paul tells us in the book of Philippians that we should be content with our current circumstances. 

Not that I speak from need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with little, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. 
Philippians 4:11-12

I write from experience that our current circumstances will not always be our future. By this I mean if you are barely making ends meet today, it doesn’t mean that your tomorrow will necessarily be the same. I remember a time when I was single and had only $5 in my checking account. I was waiting for an overdue check from the company that I worked for and I was in a state of panic. My bills were paid for the month, including rent, but it was too close for comfort. I did not always manage my money wisely in the past, but by this time I had become conservative in most areas of my spending. I had been tithing my money for God’s work and had the habit of saving money, so I knew that God would not let me down. I continued to do without many material things that others seemed to be able to afford for a few years, but I learned valuable lessons and was a better person for it. That was eighteen years ago and I can honestly say that God has brought me a long way. My husband and I consider ourselves blessed by God in all that He has given us, even though we are not rich and we still have a mortgage.

When we prioritize God, we see Him work on our behalf. It may not be right away, but He will help us improve our financial situation if we continue to be faithful. If you find this hard to believe, He tells us to test Him.


"From the days of your fathers you have turned away from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you," says the Lord of armies. "But you say, 'How shall we return?' "Would anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed You?' "In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the entire nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and put Me to the test now in this," says the Lord of armies, "if I do not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruit of your ground; nor will the vine in the field prove fruitless to you," says the Lord of armies. 
Malachi 3:7-11

Although this was written by God’s prophet Malachi to Israel in ancient times, it still holds true for us today. If we prioritize God in our earnings, He will not only pour out blessings, He will keep what we do have in good shape. Most of us no longer grow our own crops, but we do have jobs and we have things that can break down. We have unexpected emergencies that require us to spend money. This is what God means by rebuking the devourer and not allowing him to destroy the fruit of our ground. In other words, He will keep your old car running as you prioritize Him. He will provide what you need to make it during those emergency situations. I for one can say this is true, because I have seen God do this very thing in my life. God provides for His children in ways that we cannot imagine.

All of those extra material things that we think we have to have or need can wait. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to have nice things, He wants our devotion to be to Him first. Then He will provide for us in His time and in His way. You may have heard the saying, “show me your checkbook and I’ll show you your priorities.” What or whom do we prioritize? If it’s not God, then we will miss out.

Let’s look at another verse concerning worldly riches.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for  yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." 
Matthew 6:19-21

For those of us who like “nice things,” this verse should help put things into perspective. Instead of spending all our money on the things that we like and want, God is saying to prioritize some of the money we bring home—for His kingdom. These treasures in heaven can’t be destroyed, but our material things here on earth wear out after a while.

How can we store up treasures in heaven?

First and foremost, we can share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others who may not know Him. This only costs us our time to learn how and to share Christ’s saving work on the cross. If you are not sure how to share the gift of Jesus Christ with others, I have included a link below for Dr. D. James Kennedy’s book, Evangelism Explosion, to get you started. Years go my church in Miami offered this course, so I took it and it taught me scripture verses to explain Jesus’s work of salvation and gave me field experience speaking to others about the Gospel. It was certainly worth the investment even when I had to make the time to attend and spend a small amount in course materials.

Second, we can give our tithe weekly or monthly to our local church and/or an organization that seeks to help those who need Jesus and who may be poor, hungry, persecuted, and affected by wars or natural disasters. Many of these organizations not only help alleviate suffering, they also share the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, we could give directly to others that we know are hurting and have limited resources. We can even take someone to lunch who is down and out to let them know that they are loved and valuable. We can also volunteer our time and talents which can positively impact someone who needs a mentor or friendship. 

Our lives are but a vapor and how we steward what God gives to us is what matters. I hope that when I get to heaven, God will say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” I know that when I am there, I won’t be thinking about money or the material things that I possessed here on earth. How about you?

May God bless you abundantly as you seek His will for your life.

Evangelism Explosion – Dr. D. James Kennedy

https://a.co/d/bmi9wLD”

If you want to have a relationship with God and are not sure how or where to start, see my previous posts Relationship with God and Relationship with God – Part 2.