Why?

        In the past two weeks I have heard this question a number of times for many different reasons:  "Why?"  And in the "Why?" there is no answer and who knows if there will be.   So if there is no answer then perhaps is there the invitation from God to just trust him?  I wonder if in the trusting and in the waiting if there might not just be an invitation to look for the gift, the grace of the unexpected visitor.  Carol sent me this poem yesterday.  Perhaps it might be what you need to hear today.

How  to Recognize Grace
by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

It takes you by surprise
It comes in odd packages
It sometimes looks like loss
Or mistakes
It acts like rain
Or like a seed
It's both reliable and unpredictable
It's not what you were aiming at
Or what you thought you deserved
It supplies what you need
Not necessarily what you want
It grows you up
And lets you be a child
It reminds you you're not in control
And that not being in control
is a form of freedom

From Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, Vol. XVII, No. 4 (July/August 2002), (Nashville: The Upper Room, 2002), weavings.org