How many people can say that their “homework” was to read the book of Genesis this past week? Not many, I would wager! That is one incredible thing about my Bible classes…I get to read the Bible for study! Pretty awesome stuff!

If you haven’t read Genesis in awhile, for the sake of entertainment, get to it! The amount of adventure in this one book is quite spectacular!!

Therein lies the Creation story, Noah, Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaac, Jacob and Esau (who gave up his birthright for some stew!), Jacob/Leah/Rachel’s love story filled with sacrifice and pain, and finally Joseph.

I have loved the story of Joseph longer than Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat has been on tour! Again, for entertainment sake, get the CD player out and listen to the soundtrack for crying out loud!

Donny Osmond as Joseph is a-MA-zing!

For a quick summation~ Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery after throwing him into a pit, he was falsely accused of rape by his master’s wife and thrown into the palace dungeon where he found that God allowed him to interpret dreams. This brought him, a few years later, in front of Pharaoh to interpret his nightmares about an upcoming famine. This display of wisdom impressed Pharaoh who placed Joseph in a position of high esteem to prepare for this famine.

When the famine struck the land, Joseph’s family in Canaan felt the hunger pains and came to Egypt to buy food from…Joseph of course! Once they worked out their differences, all of Joseph’s family (including his dear old dad Jacob) came to Egypt to live under the care and protection of Pharaoh.

If you have ever wondered how the Israelites ended up as slaves in Egypt that led up to the Exodus, this was the moment it happened!

At the end of this whole story line is Joseph’s incredible statement to his brother’s in Genesis 50:20 – You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Wow.

No bitterness over all the years of pain, rejection, loneliness, false accusations, enslavement, imprisonment that led him to this point in his life…

He fostered forgiveness toward them…and the clarity of knowing BUT GOD…

I have the incredible honor of facilitating a GriefShare class at my church. In this class, I get to sit amongst those who are actively grieving the death of a spouse, sibling, parent, child, aunt or uncle for 28 weeks out of the year. I have met those who are the survivors of someone lost to suicide, overdoses, medical negligence, car accidents, abortion, cancer, sudden death, sepsis…Many times, I am by far the youngest in the class with no personal experience of the pain they are living in- yet, I am somehow equipped by God to sit there with them.

The death of my sister in law brought me to that type of class and paved the way for this ministry opportunity to occur.

Therefore I say BUT GOD…

I believe in an enemy…we have one. He is out to kill and destroy all that is good in this world. He is a liar and a thief. He comes dressed in shiny, pretty packages that are tempting and misleading in its deception.

My enemy is the same one behind the wheel that prompted Joseph’s brothers to be so jealous of him that they devised a plan to kill him without a care that it would break their father’s heart in the process.

Perhaps they wanted to punish Jacob as well for loving Joseph as much he did…

He is the same enemy who tempted Eve in the Garden.

He is the same enemy who came into Judas to bring about the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

My enemy told me that Dee’s death was my fault. I did not intervene into her life to help her. Now, those who love me will quickly come to my defense and say it was not my fault and you cannot save an addict who will not help themselves- I get that. But, she is dead none-the-less and I did nothing to stop it.

My enemy told me I doomed her eternity because of the lifestyle I was living beside her.

My enemy told me my marriage would fail and my children would be lost to their own devices to fight against the disease of alcoholism that ran rampant through their veins.

My enemy said that my life did not matter and nothing I ever did would make any kind of difference in this world so why should I waste my time trying for change.

My enemy told me God was not good because He let us make our own choices (free will) and held us to the consequences of those choices.

My enemy told me that living for God was no fun and no one would like me if I changed my ways.

BUT GOD…

Jesus healed a blind man in John 9 where He used spit and mud to open the man’s eyes. Jesus could have snapped His fingers and the man would have been able to see (He turned old jugs of water into the best wine at a wedding without leaving His chair for Pete’s sake) but instead, He chose messy healing to open the man’s eyes…

My eye’s were opened with spit and mud. There was no soothing washcloth with warm water, only gritty sand and spit to wet it before it was caked on my face and rubbed off.

It hurt.

But. I. Could. See.

Without the pain, I may not have been changed so abruptly.

Without the suffering, I may not have desired a different option to the lies that were being fed into my head.

Without the hopelessness, I would not have searched for HOPE.

What was planned for evil, God used for good…His good, His glory, His Kingdom.

There is no notoriety in being a GriefShare facilitator, anymore than there is in being a nurse (which I also am). There is no fame or fortune in going into an unnamed ministry that I am called to. I look like a woman who has no scars because mine are not visible to see by the naked eye, so what is there for me to say that someone should listen?

It is not my glory, my gain, my fame…My life is but an offering to the One who opened my eyes. I pour myself out before you verbally, holding nothing back, to further God’s name and not my own.

Revelations 12:11 says that the word of our mouth and the power of our testimony shall overcome the enemy…May it be so with what I print here!

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

Amen.