God Intended it for Good

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Genesis 50:20

The morning after Gabe chipped his teeth at recess, I called and left a message at the school to let them know that he wouldn’t be in that day because we were going to take the day off to rest and recover from the excitement of the day before. I let them know that their prayers were being answered and that God is taking care of Gabe. His new teeth looked almost better than the first ones did and that the thing we needed to be praying for now was that his two front teeth do not fall out! Now when I left the message I was thinking that only the school secretary that prayed with him would hear it and maybe the other ladies in the office. Little did I know what God had planned for that message! The ladies in the office did all hear it, but so did the principal and he called me to let me know that they were so sorry that Gabe had gotten hurt, they were glad to hear that he was feeling better and that the principal himself was praying for him. He just “happened” to call at the same time that my house started filling up with people bringing over soft foods for Gabe to eat (no solid foods for TWO Weeks for a nine-year old boy is NOT cool). There were 2 Bible study sisters, one of their daughters, and 3 kids when another Bible study sister called on the phone (immediately after the principal) with some news. It was a mad house around here! Women chatting loudly as to be heard over the literally screaming children, ahhhhhh….. my dream come true! I love when my house is filled with LIFE and laughter.

When I took Gabe to school a couple of hours later to pick up his homework and say “Hi” to his friends, his teacher let me know that she had heard the message too! The kids in his class were pretty shaken up by his accident, so she had her assistant play the message on speaker phone to all the kids in Gabe’s classroom. Now I have to point out that the me you read on this website is the me I really am. I am like this all the time. As in, I talk up God and what He’s doing. I see Him working in ways that most people don’t see or understand, and I call it as I see it. So when I leave a message on the absence report line at school sharing an update on how my son is doing I’m going to share about the prayers being answered, and how God kept him from being hurt more than he was. It was amazing, his lip didn’t even get swollen! How in the world do you partially chip one front tooth and practically break another front tooth in half vertically and NOT bust your lip open, bruise your cheek or even get a concussion? I mean really!?! How does that happen if you don’t have a guardian angel watching over you assigned directly from the throne room of God? To be completely honest with you, considering what all came from this incident I am reluctant to give the Enemy any credit for what happened. Why? Because too many amazing things came from it to be anything but straight from God.

Anyway, as I was standing there listening to his teacher tell me about how she could see and feel the tension in the room leave as those kids listened to how God was answering their prayers and that He is taking care of their friend. I even used the word relax in my message and when I said it, it was as if they took it as permission to relax and stop worrying. There are kids in that room that have never stepped foot into a church before or heard God spoken of in that way before… until my son was injured. (Luke 12:3 What you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.) You know what God whispered to me while I was praising Him later about bring used in such a powerful way? He told me that after hearing that message some of the kids in Gabe’s class prayed for the very first time!!! Now I’m sorry, but I have a really hard time giving satan credit for that! I am actually going to go so far as to confess to you that I believe that it was under direct orders from God himself that the “accident” occurred. I’m sure there are some of you out there absolutely squirming in your seats right now wanting to disagree with me. But look at the facts people! Look at what all happened BECAUSE he got hurt. Not in spite of it, because of it. There are so many people praying for my son, that is one of God’s main goals for us in life, to PRAY. To reach out to The light from our darkness. But adults weren’t the only ones reaching out to God for help through this, children, Gabe’s friends were praying for the FIRST times in their lives! I can’t tell you how many times I have prayed for those children asking God to draw them into an intimate relationship with Himself. And He did that through my son!

The night after Gabe broke his teeth, he got up from the couch and his teeth chomped together accidentally, causing him great pain. He ran into his room sobbing and upset. I followed him and asked him what had happened and all he would say was “I don’t want fake teeth! I don’t want fake teeth!” I reminded him that only half of one tooth was fake and a small chip of the other. But that didn’t really help him either. So I took him next door into the bathroom and made him smile into the mirror. I said, “Gabe I want you to look at your teeth, really look at them. Now I want you to think about everything that God did because you broke your teeth. Because you broke your teeth, some of your friends talked to God for the very first time in their whole lives! People all over the place have been praying for YOU and your mouth, which is drawing them closer to God all because you broke your teeth. Because you broke your teeth your friends got to hear about how God takes care of us, and how much He loves us, they may never hear that again. These teeth are BEAUTIFUL! I want you to remember all those things every time you look at your teeth in the mirror. Every night and every morning when you brush these fake teeth I want you to remember how God used YOU and your pain to teach LOTS of other people about how much He loves them! Don’t you DARE be ashamed of these teeth! Not ever! They are too precious for that.” No matter how pain comes into your lives, please please please know that God does NOT allow (or cause) pain in our lives simply for the sake of having us experience pain. He loves us too much for that. Pain is in our lives to mold us into the vessel that God wants us to be. We ARE always in the potters hands, there isn’t a moment when we’re not. There are times in our lives when He is turning us on His wheel and applying soothing water and light pressure to form us in a certain way. But then there are other times in our lives when He picks up a tool that was created to “wreak havoc” and carve out a beautiful pattern or design into the clay of our flesh. The tool may be the one doing the “damage” but ultimately, it’s the potter’s hands holding the tool to do the work that He created him to do. Carving the pattern according to His will, not the tool’s. Personally I find it comforting to know that no matter what is going on in my life, GOD is the one in complete control. That God has the Enemy in His hand, in complete control of him the WHOLE time. At no point am I at the Enemy’s mercy, but at God’s mercy.

Isaiah 57:1-2 The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.”

John 9:1-5 “As He went along, He saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the words of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the words of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’”

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 “…because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”