Not to us, O LORD, not to us,
But to Thy name give glory
Because of Thy lovingkindness,
because of Thy truth.
Why should the nations say,
"Where now is their God?"
But our God is in the heavens;
He does whatever He pleases.
Psalm 115:1-3
While I won't divulge the details here to the world, we've been dealing with some challenging stuff lately. And when hard things happen it makes it easy for us to jump to asking questions, wanting to know the "why, God?" behind the struggles in life. The answer to that question is always before us though... because in some way, this challenge, this trial, this grief will give God the most glory.
We heard John Piper speak once about this and he explained it in the sense of a tapestry. Here on earth we are on the underside of the tapestry and while we may see some semblance of a pattern or a design, what is most evident to us now are the strings and knots and loose ends... in other words, we see the problems and snarls of life. However, once we are on the other side of eternity, looking back at this tapestry we will see that God has used all of life's events, both good and bad, to create the most beautiful design possible, the pattern and picture that brings Himself the most glory. (at least I think this is what Piper meant by this, I don't mean to attribute something to someone if it's not what they intended to say... but that's what we got out of it at least!)
We praise God for His goodness and grace in our lives!