All for Good

I normally wouldn't disclose the ending of a book. But, since this in no way ruins the plot, I'm going to share something from a book I finished last week. It's called "Katie's Dream" and it was written by Leisha Kelly. 

It reminds me to count it all joy - especially the trials. 

"We survived. More than that, we were blessed...We ended up taking them [a family in need] a meal most every Sunday we came into town. We had little. But it felt good to give. Emma had known that. Thank God she had passed it on.  

Thank God for the opportunity to know Hazel and George and Edward and all the other difficult people we'd ever had to love. God knows what he's doing wrapping up the crazy mix He put on this earth. 

'We wouldn't know sweet if it weren't for sour,' Grandma Pearl had once told me. 'Wouldn't know the answers without any questions, nor God's saving hand without something to be saved out of.' 

Such is life. A parade of opposites. A jumble of trials, punctuated by moments of the purest bliss. Love and conflict. Laughter and sweat and tears. We saw so much of it all, bringing up little Worthams. And Hammonds. And it was good. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. "

After all, as God's people:

We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, 

to those who are called according to His purpose. 

For, whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, 

that He might be the first born among many brethren. 

Romans 8:28-29