the thing about goodness

when the goodness of God faces off with a broken world

The day I had time set aside to sit down and write this newsletter, one of the people I loved best in all the world made a series of choices that devastated me and cost our family deeply.

It took me almost a week to sit down again and it struck me as I’m writing that when I planned this post, I knew and felt it was true and now I know it’s true but my feelings are jumbled and messy. Can it possibly be true about THIS circumstance? THIS pain?

I have faith that the answer is yes. I trust that the answer is yes.

But faith is all about what we trust when we can’t see the results. So while I’ve found these things to be true of God’s goodness in the past, in the present I am believing them to be true once again, even though I can’t prove it yet.

As you read, I’m sure there will be some of you who can look back on your life and know the truth of these words. Others, like me, will be holding circumstances that leave us with questions of whether or not God’s goodness is strong enough to battle the brokenness our hearts are suffering under.

To each of you, whichever place you fall, I pray you will catch a glimpse of God’s unrelenting faithfulness as you read.

In Romans 8:28 we’re told, “we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God…”

All things.

A pretty bold claim, especially when I look back on the past 10+ years of my life.

• Our baby, Annie, dying in the NICU?

• All the miscarried babies that have bled out of my body?

• All the trauma that my older kids have crumbled under the weight of?

• All the ways that trauma has crashed into our home over and over again?

All things, we’re told, will work together for our good. It’s almost enough to make you laugh at the irony.

But what is “good”?

Megan Marshman explained in an interview once that for many of us, when we read “for our good” we interpret it to mean “for our comfort”. And if that is true, then God’s promise doesn’t work. It’s laughable, really.

Annie’s death hasn’t worked for my comfort. Bleeding out babies hasn’t been comfortable. Trauma has definitely not brought any kind of comfort to our world.

So it must not be that “good” means “comfort”. And in fact, if we read the next verse we’re told exactly what God means by “good”.

For those he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of the son… (Romans 8:29)

conformed to the image of the son.

This is the good God promises.

All things will work together to conform us to the likeness of Jesus—and NOTHING can stop it.

Death can’t stop it.
Trauma can’t stop it.
Loss can’t stop it.

Nothing can stop the transformation of God’s children—he will faithfully, respectfully, with unrelenting grace, continue the work of changing us into the image of Jesus.

It’s not about comfort, after all, it’s about strength. What is stronger? The brokenness of this world? Or the goodness of God?

And we know that in all things (even the heartbreaking, crushing, devastating things) God’s transformative work will continue in those who love him, who have been called into his purpose. This good, good work of conforming and breathing life into our hearts that were once dead in sin will not be stopped by any thing this world brings our way and instead God’s goodness to us will be found in how He faithfully keeps remaking us into the image of Jesus, no matter what we face on this earth. His goodness is stronger than everything we’ll experience. We are not at the mercy of our circumstances, instead, we are at the mercy of the goodness of God.

And as Psalm 23 reminds us, for those of us who follow the good Shepherd, we also have something following us:

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life… (Psalm 23:6)

Your heartache can’t stop it, friends. And neither can mine.

Now that’s goodness.