God Moves Behind the Scenes

We all have them, markers of good and bad in our lives. April marks our spot. It’s another anniversary of when life altered through our daughter’s illness. 

I often wish I could box up our difficult experience which happened many years ago, and put it on a shelf like those seasonal totes which I take out and open once a year. But it waits in the fabric of every day for the tiniest thing to unhinge its lid and compels me to finger the frayed memories again.

 It’s been a long haul. We’ve tasted bitter. We’ve tasted sweet. We’ve discovered, re-discovered, learned, and unlearned who God is, and we’ve never gotten to the end of that knowledge. 

I just finished reading about the ten plagues in Egypt in the book of Exodus. God’s hand moves throughout the book in phenomenal ways. Disasters devastated the land. The Egyptians and Israelites living then experienced life from crisis to crisis.  

And when that occurs, as it will at some point in every life, the crisis takes a certain priority. Because just surviving takes every ounce of energy. 

“Do what’s right today,” my husband advised over and over during the day to day crisis. He was working in Kansas City, while I was with our daughter at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Not much of what was happening made sense, but that phrase always reminded me God was behind the scenes. He owned the day, and He would own tomorrow. 

Living crisis to crisis leaves us worn and raw. Open and vulnerable. 

“I will harden Pharoah’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you.” (Exodus 7:3-4 ESV)

God was behind the scenes. Not just the ones which looked like a happy party and everyone got what they desired. God did things which thousands of years later we read about and still wonder at because we can’t understand. Behind the scenes, in the invisible pieces of the story, God moved. 

He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, turned water to blood, sent frogs, locusts, flies, gnats, boils, diseased livestock, rained hail, and the people lived in the distress of the day. 

 As Moses walked into one confrontation with Pharaoh, after another, he did what God required. That day. And then the next. 

Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord. (Exodus 10:1-2 ESV)

As I read this story again, the One behind the scenes moved in the backdrop of my heart, prying the lid of the chest open just a tad to wonder again at God’s hand on our lives. 

The Egyptian’s harsh treatment at the hand of an Almighty God brought many difficulties to both Egyptian and Israelites. But not without purpose for them and all who came after them.  

God’s plans went beyond to children and grandchildren, always coming back to “that they might know He is Lord.” 

How often I think crisises begin and end with me. But God is vast. He is over all. He looks beyond; ahead and behind, far and close, to generations not even born yet. His purposes even in our smallest trials and sorrows are never just for me. What He does is never that short-sighted.

He is the Perfecter in all of our unseen “behind the scenes.” 

The illness which seemed so devastating as we lived crisis to crisis, had purpose beyond momentary affliction. Much of it we’ll never know nor understand, nor do we need to.

As I open yesterday’s box, reach inside again and shake out the garments of stored grief, I find gratefulness in its folds. 

God’s hand is a faithful and good hand, righteous and holy.   

He gripped the hands of a family riding the turbulent waves of a health crisis which left scars. With tender mercy He still holds our hands, and His faithfulness extends to the next generation, for they too are held by Him.God’s hand is a faithful and good hand, righteous and holy Click To Tweet

Sometimes it feels as if the world sits on a tinder box, and we wonder at the bigger forces behind the scenes, at the tomorrows that wait for our children and grandchildren. For a nation. For us.  

Take heart. Trust the One behind the scenes. He is neither surprised nor shaken by crisis. He remains the same faithful, good, and purposeful God to each and every generation.

*Feature Photo by Jess Zoerb on Unsplash