Psalm 27:13 Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness
    while I am here in the land of the living.

In just a few hours my husband will meet with the commanding General of the Military District of Washington, his attorney, and his military commander. At the end of that meeting he will know how his twenty-five-year career as an Army officer will end. I feel that it’s very important I write this post BEFORE that decision has been made.

Two weeks ago I was struggling to find anything “good” about my God. All around me I saw people hurting and struggling with disappointment. Where was the goodness?

On July 25th, a precious family in our Church community, while vacationing in South Carolina, dealt with every parent’s biggest fear. That Saturday morning their two-year-old daughter was pulled lifeless from the bottom of a pool. Harper went fifteen minutes without oxygen. She was placed in a medically induced coma and they were warned that when she was taken out of the coma, she would likely be brain-dead. Our community and people all around the globe fell to our knees.

We WILL see the Lord’s goodness… in the land of the living.

After three days, Harper awoke. Her first word after waking was, “Mama”. A few hours later, a whole phrase… “I want Dada.”

I have a confession to make. For those first three days after Harper drowned, I wasn’t crying out to God with hope or expectation. I was crying with anger and frustration. Why?

Harper’s sweet Mama posted a video on Instagram of her asking for her Dada. I watched that video at least fifty times and each time I shed tears of gratitude and repentance.

In the land of the living…

What if, the first sentence we spoke upon waking was, “I want Dada”? What if our first complete thought was how desperately we need our Heavenly Father?

In Deuteronomy 1 we’re told that the journey the Israelites had set out on, should have taken them eleven days. FORTY YEARS later, God told their leader Moses, “You have been on this road long enough…”

Eleven days after drowning and going fifteen minutes without oxygen, Harper Wilder was discharged from the hospital COMPLETELY healed and restored.

Fifteen days after drowning she took a break from running around our Church and said, “Cheeeeese” while posing for me to take this picture. 

The Father’s goodness…. in the land of the living.

I do not want for a second to discount the pain of those who pray for someone’s healing and see that perfect healing come in the form of physical death. Nor do I want to discount the disappointment of long-waiting for answered prayers or prayers answered in different ways than we have hoped.

But I know this….

Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes EVERYTHING to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

EVERYTHING works together for our good.

Isaiah 55:8-9 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
    “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways
    and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

His thoughts are NOTHING like ours.

Ephesians 3:20 God can do ANYTHING, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!

What if, we looked for NOTHING but His goodness? What if we expected it? What if we looked at every circumstance in our lives without trying to figure it out with our limited ways of thinking? What if we just looked at everything with the expectation, the knowledge, that it is ALL working together for our good.

Psalm 23:6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
    all the days of my life,…

His goodness… in the land of the living.

No matter what the outcome is of today’s meeting, it is for our good.

Amen.