Is God Good?

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It was February of 2002, and I was having an argument with God.  You see, my husband felt that God was calling us to a new city to live and to minister, but I didn't want to go.  I dug my heels in and tried to run the other direction.  The way He was leading us did not seem good enough to me, and the other way looked much, much more appealing.  I begged God not to make me go.

It was late that night, about 10pm, and I escaped from our tiny apartment and the heated discussions about this potential move, and drove to my office.  I cried on the way; I prayed, "God, please show me what to do. I don't want to go; please don't make me."  I parked in the empty parking lot of my office building and walked inside. Nobody was there, it was eerily quiet. I walked to my desk, and a post-it note was sitting there - right in the middle where I couldn't miss it.

"I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see 

the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."  Psalm 27

I knew who left it - it was the handwriting of my student worker.  She didn't know what I was going through; what huge life-changing decision was before me.  Yet the minute I saw that note, I knew what God was telling me to do: Go.  I drove back home and told my husband that I knew what we were supposed to do (what he knew all along).

Even though I knew what God was saying, I still fought and kicked and tried to run.  We made the move, and I struggled.  I didn't feel God's goodness; in fact, I felt like He left me there to die.  The job I was offered - it was rough.  I dreaded going to work.  I was lonely. The neighborhood we lived in was not what I had pictured.  The church we were in - I felt like my husband's shadow, like a nobody.

That post-it note stayed in my Bible, but I learned to turn past it, to pretend it wasn't there. God's goodness?  Yeah right.  He had forgotten about me.

Six years and two children later, we made another big move. We moved into a better neighborhood, a nicer home, and things began to change. I started to emerge from the valley I had been lost in.  We moved on my birthday, and my new house was filled with over 30 people singing their hearts out and welcoming us into our new home.

We moved into this house 4 years ago today. Today I saw that post-it note in my Bible, the one that I had learned to flip right by because I didn't really believe it.

And I remembered.  I remembered that maybe God had not forgotten about me, even though I felt that way... that it was a long and hard season, but He was there the whole time.

Today was the day I also came across a new song by Audrey Assad, and as I listened to it, I was hit hard.  Please take a moment to listen to this and see why:

I do know the answer to that question, "Is God Good?" And I'm so sorry I ever doubted.  It was just a season, but He is still good.

He is good enough to remind me of this, on my 37th birthday, on the anniversary of the day we moved into this house - another gift from Him - that He never forgot about me...

And He has not forgotten about you either.