Why does God allow bad things to happen?

This is the question I often read or hear, and because of that, I have pondered the same. Not because I personally am curious, but moreso because I desire an intelligent response to that question. I've been inspired through the Holy Spirit to dive into this subject and I am praying the Holy Spirit leads me through this post. I don't feel at all qualified to talk about God, I too am just on a journey and with that journey is my growing connection to Him. I'm not a Pastor, I'm not a Spiritual leader or counselor, nope, nothing, no qualifications. What I am though, is what God leads me to believe, I am called to share inspiration through my experiences and with that, I can talk today about what's coming to me in relation to the question "Why does God allow bad things to happen?" I've heard the old Satan involvement answer. Satan is in charge of all the bad in the world. All the bad things that happen, are satan's hold on your life. If that's something you believe, I may not be able to change your mind with my words, but read on. Read a different perspective? I like to live as if satan is not welcome in my life, and when bad things happen to me, I don't even give satan a thought, want to know why? I don't want to give him that much power. I trust God in His fight against satan and therefore, I work hard not to even allow him to be a thought in my mind. Now that's out, you won't read another word about the dark side. I am talking today about our Trust in the Lord. The Lord so deeply desires a commitment in our hearts to trust Him at all times. Good and bad times. My current favorite Bible verse is : Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own undertanding." Proverbs 3:5. I've used this as my mantra in my ways, it's written on a post it note and sticks on my dashboard. I find so much hope and promise and a sense of "take the burden off my shoulders" when I read it. Often times when God is trying to share His message with me, I tend to find "clues" that lead to the bigger picture. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time, but then the light bulbs start going off and it all just clicks. That happened to me yesterday. As I was sitting in church, I was feverishly taking notes during the sermon. It solidified the devotion I read just the night before and it was all about the same topic. Trusting the Lord. The Lord makes his promises and the Lord delivers his promises. "The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done." Genesis 8:21. This promise allows me to believe that the "end of the world" talk is simply...T A L K. God states he will not "wipe away" the land, and I believe Him. Noah was obedient to God; but also thought of by others as crazy. He was simply trusting the Lord's message and He was obeying the Lord. I found so much peace in this revelation. I often times find the "ideas" I have to be out of the box. So much so that others tend to think I am a little or possibly a lot of crazy going on :) I struggled with that, until yesterday. It was clear to me that I am to follow the leadership of the Lord and turn away my reliance on caring what others think. Each one of us has our own journey and each one of us have works to do for the Lord. I know wholeheartedly I am here to do the work of the Lord and I am thrilled for Him to reveal to me His plans for me! I trust Him.

In closing, I mentioned a devotion I read, you can read it below, it's from "One Year Women's Devotional" by Kathy Ferguson Litton (unable to locate online...it's showing up as a Kindle edition, I am reading the print version...)

                              A Sacred Exchange of Trust
                                                     Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10
     For believers suffering is a sacred place. It's certainly not always the sacred experience we would choose for ourselves or loved ones, yet it's a place God has chosen for us. The landscape of our suffering may be a life altering accident, a wound from a trust friend, and injustice, or a long term battle with cancer. In that hazy, unwanted, and perhaps mysterious circumstance God creates space for the sacred in our lives. In our unique pathway He calls for us to trust Him and He demonstrates trust in us. Suffering becomes an exchange of trust.
     The exchange of trust begins as He calls for us to trust Him. Faith and trust may be hard to find in our dark hours. In the unexpected or unwanted, trust is not always our first response to God. And yet genuine faith as referred to in 1 Peter 1:7 is a faith that is proved in a crucible of a real experience. We may have willingness or readiness to trust, but the surprise visit of suffering gives us a real playing field to demonstrate the trust we claim to have.
     Hardships provide us the sacred opportunity to trust God in circumstances in which He may be not clear or understandable. Our trust is tried and purified in hospital waiting rooms, at gravesides, through infertility tests, injustices, or difficult callings, all sites of raw emotions and fears. The stakes are high in these scenarios of trust. It is far easier to trust God in the safe, sanitized church pew agreeing with the often-quoted verses about trust. Yet it is at the scene of car accidents or a bad prognosis from a doctor where trust must emerge. While we may be disoriented, our hearts must find their way to trust the God who loves us faithfully.
     God is not always as clear as we need Him to be. God does not always work as we would like Him to work. Fear and mistrust battle in our hearts. Corrie ten Boom has said it well: "When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer." Sit still. Even in a dark tunnel, trust the Engineer.
Dear Father, my faith seems fragile. And yet I know You are still on the throne. Quiet my fears and confusion. In this dark place let me sit still and know that You are God. Amen.

Tick...tick...tick....

It's been 2.5 years since Al had his kidney transplant. 2.5 years of taking medications, 2.5 years of us being spoiled by having a life away from dialysis, 2.5 years and the man is a ticking time bomb. Every single time he is feeling under the weather, I wonder if it's his kidney going into failure. He has been getting a lot of side effects from his medications lately, I believe it's because of the new dosing since his acute failure a few months back. He feels exhausted, his appetite isn't that great, he's anxious at times, he belly never seems to be happy, he even got up in the middle of the night the other night to vomit. We called the doctor to discuss his side effects and he will be seen on Monday. My prayerful hope is that we can change the meds or maybe add a supplement that eases his discomfort. Nothing is like his dialysis days, I think he tries not to complain about how he feels because he knows he's blessed to have a working kidney, but in the meantime, I stress over how he's feeling and why he's feeling the way he does. I worry that his kidney isn't going to last much longer and we just aren't ready to give up the freedom of normalcy in our lives. I pray all the time that his kidney will just last and last and last, but the truth is, we don't know when it will expire. I am praying for good insight on Monday when we see the doctor for a check up and we also have an appointment with a natural doctor the following week. That doctor requested that Al fill out an 11 page questionnaire, it was very thorough and I am hopeful that doctor will be able to give us some ideas. 

Show us your life Link up

I love home tours, Kelly's Korner blog is doing a "show us your life" link up for homes, this week's is "kitchens" I have my new phone that loves to snap pics that I love to play around with, therefore, I did a little "snapping away" in my kitchen. I am detached from our home, ready to move, outta here as soon as we can be, but I will admit, there are elements of this house that I know I need to soak up now, because we won't find it anywhere else! Our kitchen was completely gutted and we remodeled to our liking. I do still love the kitchen, however it is missing the "eat in" part that I so desperately desire in a kitchen. Aside from that, it's pretty useful!

My kitchen tour

Little bit of decor in the corner. 

Looking in from the dining room

The computer and little "mess" on the island is my "office" I can cook, be on the computer and have the TV on all at the same time ;)

Back door entrance

I just added this bulletin board to house Acilia's chore chart. I am in love with it!
Simple pleasure, only $9.99!!

We have a bathroom in the kitchen. All of the shelving leads me to believe it was a walk in pantry at one point?

View from the bathroom

Other side

Looking from the other side. Door on the left is the bathroom, door on the right is the back entrance

Magnetic tin ceiling, original to the house! Definitely cool!

Our "TV corner" :) I have my calendar and a dry erase board that I can write our weekly schedule :) 

A week already!?

Today is Friday. Last Friday was the first day of summer break for us. A whole week of summer break has passed as quickly as I feared time would go. I find myself so happy, we have settled in to the summer schedule which means sleeping later and pretty much doing all we can to enjoy every minute! The kids are outside, we have more baths than normal because they are getting dirty (ick! I hate dirt, but they are so happy!!) we finally convinced Miles it's "cool" and "fun" to go for bike rides! He doesn't know how to pedal, last year he was in the trailer attached to my bike and now he's riding on a big boy bike tag along and though he refuses to pedal or even keep his feet on the pedals, he's attached to me, and he can ride along like a big kid! So thrilling, I feel more free now! Now we just need to get Al a bike! I got mine last summer, Acilia is a little pro and now Miles has something he can use for a few years, it's Al's turn. Family bike rides can be crossed off the list soon! I can feel it :)
Tonight we are going to Tastee Freeze. It's a local ice cream shop built on memories! It's walking distance to our house which could be very dangerous for my waistline, but I've managed to only plant the idea in the kids heads once in a while, I believe it's been a few weeks since we went last, so it's time :)

Tastee Freeze

My niece is here, she was here last night too. That's a sure sign of summer. We tell the kids all school year, it's a school night, no playdates with cousins, but, now it's summer and we have less rules! Less scheduling, less of everything, except fun! Lot's MORE fun!! I am so enjoying it!!

A new spin on the stereotypes

As I was on Facebook today, I was faced with the inevitable "bash" to those that don't use the system according to the way the public expects them to. This tag is just one of many out there, that are funny (yes) but could be hurtful. There are without a doubt people out there that abuse the system and it's frustrating to those that most definitely work hard to pay their dues to help, when it's not necessarily deserved, but until some laws change, this is the way it is. I just ask you to be mindful as I share a few words below. They were written from my heart in response to this post on Facebook:
As a woman who has had to be "in the system" for many years due to Al's kidney failure, I can easily fall into that "stereotype" everytime I pull out the medicaid card to pay for our family's health check ups, I mentally run up and down my outfit reminding myself, my pants are from before dialysis, my purse was on sale, my shoes were clearance....etc. We qualified for food stamps, but I could NOT bring myself to use them, because of the unavoidable judgement from the bystanders nearby. I am thankful for the government help we've received because with 1,000's of dollars spent on medical bills and anti-rejection meds for Al, we surely would have been bankrupt by now. Now especially with so many middle class people out of work, it seems *I* am not the minority on government help, which hopefully will open the eyes of those that believe what you see is what you get. So this tag is a "funny" spin on those that abuse the system, but it also belittles those that do NOT abuse the system and are embarrassed to be "in the system". Just a point to ponder.

The matter of the list

This summer I will be noting "the list" of things we want to do as the days fly by. I am happy to report we have officially checked off : (but not crossed off, because we will be doing these things more than once!)

Play in the jumpy (yesterday, I was planning to be out all afternoon, daddy would be home with the kids, so I figured I would get them set up to play in the yard!) Acilia noted how it was soooo not appropriate for Miles as it was HER jumpy from little toddlerhood days, picture a mini sized (compared to today's proportions) princess castle jumpy and you've got the idea. The kids DID have a blast though, they jumped on and off throughout the day, they even turned it into a cozy little tent. With a blanket over the top and pillows and blankets inside. Yeah, insert new rule, blankets and pillows from inside DO NOT belong outside, EWWW! 

Play with the water table: we did get to pull this one out of mothballs about a week ago, am I totally cheating by putting this on here? Either way, Miles had a blast, he was quite content to play with it for a while on a hot day. Then when I wasn't looking he decided to add some mud water to it. Have I ever mentioned how different boys and girls are? Yes, it's true! Mud?? In the water table, well, he sure thought it was a good idea! HA!

I took the kids to Cantigny today. Miles was thrilled about the idea first. Then he literally shifted like a light switch and decided he didn't want to go. I had already called my mom who had my niece there too and invited them to meet us, so I wasn't going to change plans. I will admit I was a little apprehensive though, Miles is working through a phase that can end anytime as far as I am concerned, he is the kind of the "tricky to please" type at the moment and it's sorta, kinda, well, impossible to deal with! Thankfully he cheered up after a little bit of crabbiness and we had a great time. The kids climbed on the tanks, then we went inside and viewed the model below the ground, basically it's a big area of glass you can walk on, about 2 feet below it, is an aerial view of the whole park made out of model size proportions. It's pretty cool, Miles loves to lay on it and just peer through the glass :) We found the parking lot that we parked at, the tanks we visited, the building we were inside of and all sorts of other little things.
We then visited the gift shop and picked up a little something for each of the kids. We spent some time outside, it's just beautiful no matter where you are as you enjoy the park, we found a bench (Miles played at the bench with his new army toys) the girls ran around on the grass, Mom and I sat in the rocking chairs smelling the air that was sweet with flowers, enjoyed the chime of a wind chime and watched sparrows interact with one another above us. I was such a priss for so many years, and I am so grateful I have changed my ways and that I am able to experience the sheer bliss while outside enjoying whatever my senses can pick up! It was Heaven!


So....three days in to summer (HOLY COW! Three days already!?!?) and we've officially done three things on our summer list! Not bad, not bad at all :)

And just like that, it's over

3rd grade that is, over. Past us, on to 4th grade. As I sat in the closing chapel service, the principal of Acilia's school declared the 2011-2012 school year officially closed. Before he did that, he recalled the pleasure of declaring the 2011-2012 officially OPEN, that was in August, this is June, almost a full year later and it went by in the blink of an eye. Summer is here, I wait as patiently as I can through the cold winter months for summer to appear and then, it just so happened to sneak up on me. It's here. Doesn't feel like it though, it's June first, we barely hit 60 degrees today! My teeth were actually chattering as I stood outside of school awaiting the exit of my now 4th grader. She moves "upstairs" next year, she can take part in a few more extracurricular activities, she will be going into her 3rd year at the "new school" and she is blossoming daily! I really enjoy watching my kids grow up, sure it goes fast, but I've always noted the rewards of new milestones, they far outweigh the bittersweet essence of saying good bye to the past, and hello to the future. Stay tuned ladies and gentlemen! We have big plans for summer!!
Here is a list of "Hopes and dreams" we have for this summer, let's see just how many things I can cross off the list!!:

Al's requests:
Camping
Daddy wants to take the kid's for a motorcycle ride (Mom is not sure about this one!)
Rowboats on Herrick Lake
Boating

Acilia's requests:
Go riding on lots and lot's and lot's and lot's of horses!
Go to Texas
Sleep in the backyard

Miles' requests:
Play in the jumpy, use the slip and slide and the water table
Go to Cantigny (a beautiful local park)
Swimming!

My requests:
Go downtown to Millenium Park
Go to a baseball game
Willowbrook Wildlife (a beautiful local sanctuary)
Anniversary trip with the hubby

All of us:
County Fair! (It's the collective highlight of summer for all of us!)
Family bike rides (need to get daddy a bike)
Miniature golf
Ignite Concert (Put on by KLOVE)

And I do happen to have free admission tickets to Brookfiled Zoo (Be jealous!!)

The last day of school pics:

Acilia was the photographer on this one :)
Walking in to the last day of 3rd grade!

Cya took a picture of Miles as we walked in :)

Acilia with her third grade teacher Mrs. Fontana

With the third grade teacher's aide Mrs. Milas, sweetest lady ever!

Acilia with her 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Anderson who officially retired today after 31 years of teaching!
Not a dry eye in the house when we all said goodbye!!

Officially a 4th grader! WOWZA!

Summer is sure to fly by as it always does, but my sincere hope is that I am able to savor each and every moment of each and every day!