Purpose?

For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish.  

Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? 

 (Esther 4:14 NKJV)

All-too-often we get caught up in asking God “Why?” and miss the opportunities or blessings along our paths. The movie “Soul Surfer” tells the story of a teenage girl who lost her arm in a shark attack. Now this girl wasn’t just any ordinary girl. She had hopes of becoming a professional surfer one day and to do so, she needed all her body parts, right?

I was impressed when she visited her youth pastor and for the first time since the incident, asks that question. “What good could possibly come from this?”

That’s reality.

The youth pastor’s response was equally profound. “I don’t have the answers, but I have to believe there’s a purpose.”

This leaves me to ask myself, “Do I spend more time thinking about the impossibilities than looking for the purpose?”

Before a year had passed, Bethany Hamilton inspired other children who’d been injured or disabled in some way to overcome their handicaps and follow their dreams. In the end, when asked about her situation she told the world she was thankful for missing one arm because she got to embrace more people with one arm than she ever got to with two.

How amazing is that?

I come from a broken home, determined to keep mine together with whatever means possible—duct tape if necessary. Lately I’ve noticed how my heart aches for others whose homes are splintering and there appears to be no hope of repair.

Could it be, God allows us to go through painful situations in our lives so that we can be truly compassionate and minister to others who need our extension of God’s arms around their necks?

I believe it to be so.




It's been a pleasure to visit with you.