Look for the rainbow
 
 
By CHERYL ROGERS
 
"all things work together for good to them that love God.." Romans 8:28
 
When tragedy comes, we usually spend our time just trying to survive.
 
Whether it's a serious illness, the loss of a loved one, home or job, it's hard to see past our immediate pain.
 
But God is there for us in the midst of our storm, so look for the rainbow.
 
God indeed blessed me through two personal tragedies -- the first a devastating disease called Environmental Illness and the second, the death of my father from heart disease.
 
Let me share with you what happened and hopefully, encourage you.
 
Environmental Illness is a severe immune disorder in which the body becomes sensitive to those things surrounding it. There is no medical cure. So after praying and reading and researching all I could about it, I learned to live in hope of better days.
 
Normal life came to a screeching halt. I spent my days avoiding the things that made me sick. And they were all around me!
 
I spent my energy detoxing my body, exercising, buying organic foods and vitamins and doing whatever few chores I could.
 
Technically, I was a saved Christian. I had asked Jesus to be my Savior in a church service many years prior, but I had not experienced any major life changes.
 
Now, looking back on my disease, I realize it was a major wake-up call. I'm kind of embarrassed it had to come to that.
 
But through this disease God literally humbled me and brought me into submission to him.
 
At last, I learned how much I needed God and was willing to follow Jesus as my personal Lord.
 
Religion had given me a set of rules for righteous living, but it was impersonal. Now I came to know God in a personal way.
 
It proved to me not only that he existed, but that he cared for me and knew my pain and all my secrets, even why I was sick.
 
So through this devastating illness came life -- a new life -- for me.
 
Not only did God heal me, but he has restored things I lost through the disease.
 
After I surrendered myself to God completely, he took charge and began turning my life around. Two weeks later I received the Holy Spirit and my body began to strengthen. About five months later, he healed me miraculously in one night after folks laid hands on me and prayed during a church conference.
 
He wasted no time giving us the son I never thought I could have. I couldn't cook with my young daughter when was she five because I was sick, but my son and I had an extra year at home together to bake cookies, go to the museum and make new friends. (His birthday fell less than month short of the cutoff to start school, so he didn't start kindergarten until he was almost 6!)
 
I was forced to shut down my desktop publishing business because of my sickness; he gave me melodies and helped me launch another business, this time a writing/songwriting business online.
 
Another personal tragedy was the loss of my father, who after battling heart disease around 30 years, came down with cancer at age 79. He was a fighter and never gave up hope, though he battled two life-threatening diseases.
 
When he died, God was there to support us.
 
It was a death we had all dreaded. I didn't realize how much I had feared it -- and the emotional toll it took -- until he was gone.
 
Then God gave me the grace to ask him to be my father, and I realized I had been foolish for not having done it earlier! After all the times I prayed the "Our Father," I never seemed able to regard God as my father until my earthly father was gone.
 
So out of my loss, God blessed me in my relationship with him and met me in my need.
 
It is difficult to see how God is working through tragedies like the World Trade Center attacks or Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast. But God has shown me -- in my own life -- how he uses these troubles to grow us in our relationship with him.
 
I have to believe many people came to know him -- or grew in their relationship with him -- as a result of both those tragedies. I have to believe he blessed us somehow through them.
 
The Bible tells us "with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26.
 
 
 
Cheryl Rogers is a writer and singer/songwriter specializing in Scripture songs and Scripture-based columns, stories, and artwork. Resources are posted at http://www.SongsfromtheWord.com
 
© Cheryl Rogers, Tampa, Florida
For reprint rights, contact the author at songsfromtheword@earthlink.net
 
 
 
Bible Break
Thursday, August 30, 2007