Kind Interruption

 There's this beautiful recording of quiet piano music that I listen to often. I like to put it on when I'm journaling or even when I'm taking a quick power nap during the afternoon. One of the songs on that recording is titled, "Kind Interruption," and it struck me the other day that I'm not so sure that I often look at the inconveniences that come up in my life as being well-intentioned. Usually, when something disrupts my plans or hopes, it feels like an unwelcome invasion... something intent on crashing into my blissful world and upending everything that feels safe and normal.  

Truth is, I also carry this over into my spiritual life. I conclude that somehow, God has bad motives when it comes to the things that disrupt my existence and that said interruptions are not loving or good in any way. I get angry at the fact that God would let what seems to be something so wrong or unfair or unreasonable upset my dreams and, in my anger, I accuse Him. Falsely so. The simple assumption that interruptions are poorly-intentioned can send my mental health and my peace into a tailspin... and rightly so. Because the minute I jump to the conclusion that this delay, this distraction, this denial is automatically bad, I cut myself off from the possibility that there could be more to the story. 

On the contrary, when I dig into the Jesus-story... when I even take a second to glance at my own past... I realize the truth of Romans 8:28 - that "in all things God works for the good of those who love Him..." From the very beginning when God looked at everything He had made and declared it "very good" (Gen. 1:31), He has been in the business of beauty-making. Good is at the very heart of all that God does. Even after things went so very sideways in that ancient garden, leaving us with the fallen world that we live in, creating something redemptive from the broken drives everything that God puts into motion. He cannot not be good. It's against His nature. And written all throughout the Bible narrative is the promise that evil and wrong are not the end of the story. What is intended for destruction, God will always use and turn for good. Because creating meaning even from horrible things is what God does best. 

The fact that God works good "in all things" is my course-correct when I find myself questioning if the present difficulty that just rattled my life is really necessary or desirable. I am reminded that any and all interruptions, however unpleasant or unwanted they may be, are allowed by a God who already sees potential and knows the outcome will be to my benefit and His glory. Interruptions from His hand are, by definition, kind. While the things I must receive from Him sometimes hurt and feel severe, they are mercies still. It's hard to see it that way when everything inside me is protesting but I also know there's no other way of making sense of the insensible. 

For a very long time, I've felt as though my life has been one giant interruption after another: shattered expectations, broken dreams, dashed hopes, change, unwelcome transitions, loss... just pivot after pivot after pivot. And a part of me is tired. It wants a break from the interruptions - the things that blast apart my supposed settledness and ask me to adapt once again. And yet, the more I try to see things from the vantage point of "kind interruptions," the more I realize that it's in this dislocating, upending, shaking feeling that I'm forced to know what is most secure, most true, most right. I'm asked to rise above the pain it may be causing and trust that there is something greater in play. And, in those moments when I find that I can do that, I start to see hidden miracles that assure me Heaven is on the move. 

The things that seem to jostle my life so greatly and often feel the most unwanted are usually the things that lead me to greater faith. In the uncertainty I feel as everything around me is shifting drives me to rest in my unchanging God and thus, to dare to believe that even this is well-intentioned just like everything else. This interruption is kind because God is kind. What is best for me is what God is doing through this and, like I would an earthly parent, I must have confidence in His impeccable track record. Whatever this current interruption may be is only the beginnings of yet another testimony to the goodness of Him "who works all things after the counsel of his own will" (Eph. 1:11). And if I've been able to trust Him before and He hasn't failed me yet, then surely I can trust Him again today, tomorrow, the day after that... and forever.