Last week on Monday we were sitting around the dining room table laughing, joking and enjoying being together, preparing to have our family devotional time when my cell phone started vibrating and then ringing.

To you that might not be a big thing but in our house it is. My phone just doesn’t often ring and unfortunately when it does ring I don’t hear it.

I debated answering it or just ignoring because we were getting ready to start our devotions. I choose to answer and I was shocked when I heard the reason for the call.

My friend told me in a broken voice that a friend’s son had been killed and she was, or soon would be on her way to the hospital for something to calm her down.

My heart sunk to the bottom of the deepest ocean. I couldn’t imagine. I can’t imagine. I told my friend on the phone to tell her husband (our pastor) that I would fill in the church office if I was needed.

Yeah, what did I think? Her son is killed one day and she’ll be in the office the next? An hour or so later I sent our pastor a text saying I would just be in the office the rest of the week and however long was necessary.

All that was on Monday.

On Thursday I received some hurtful news. Hurtful to me but not at all what my dear friend was going through.

Friday I was in the church office doing the secretary thing, listening to pandora when it just quit. I mean Firefox was open, pandora was playing one minute and the next it wasn’t. I thought it odd and assumed I had closed it out instead of minimizing. I opened it again and all was good.

Only it wasn’t.

The computer was crashing. Somehow a virus had gotten in and well was wrecking havoc. I was wrecked. I went into the bathroom and the button on my capris popped off.

And I sobbed. I pulled myself together long enough to go back to the office and call Mr. FullCup looking for a phone number. He didn’t have it. And I sobbed more.

I so did not want to call our pastor, who was already under such a load, and tell him, “Oh by the way, everything I was supposed to do to help you on Sunday and even the stuff you really need for the funeral tomorrow morning, can’t be done because I broke the computer.”

Him and his wife just “happened” to come in that afternoon. And saw me be real. Saw me cry. Heard me say “I just want to help and ease burdens but I seem to add to them.”

Later on Friday I was reading on facebook and noticed I had a new private message.

My friend has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

She came down with breast cancer and I came down hard, looking for answers.

You know, life is hard. Life is tough. And unrelenting. But the thing I, and all of us, have to remember is God is good. No matter what.

No matter what happens. No matter if God acts like I think God shouldn’t act. No matter what He does or doesn’t do, He is Good.

He is good. His very nature is Good. His character is Good. It is only in my finite human mind that I make Him “bad”, I make things He does seem to be bad.

But God isn’t bad. God is good and in ALL things God works for the good, not the bad. He doesn’t desire to crush us, even though at times it feels like it. Just remember Isaiah 53 says it was God’s will to crush Him. Him who?

Jesus.

He was crushed so God would look at me and say You’re forgiven. He was crushed so I could have hope of eternity with Him. Because it was HIS good pleasure.

I will never in a million years understand that. But I’ll have an eternity to try and figure it out.