Maybe there is no reason.

On Friday, Becky stopped by Vancouver to grab coffee with me, and we sat by the waterfront, sipping our iced mochas from Pines and discussing the biggest weight on my heart. All of my friends have been so supportive and helpful and encouraging, but Becky spoke to my heart in ways that nobody else had touched on. There were actually moments when I forgot that I was hurting. It was great. She is fantastic, by the way.

I had to drive her back to the Amtrak station, and as we were pulling in, the railroad gates came down and we were stuck waiting. I couldn’t see any trains coming. There was a train nearby with a guy getting out of it, and another train on the other side that was just sitting there as well.

“What are we waiting for?” I kept asking.

And then the gates lifted and we were able to drive through.

“Why did that happen??” I asked.

“Maybe there was no reason,” Becky replied.

and that was pretty deep, given the fact that I had spent the past hour basically saying “I don’t understand what happened” in fifteen thousand different ways.

Ernie gave me some valuable advice the night before. He’s said “you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what you did wrong, and maybe it wasn’t even anything. Then you run the risk of thinking you found your mistake and changing something about yourself… and it won’t be for the better.”

I am constantly trying to surrender my hurt to God and to let go of the desire to understand and replace it with trust. The idea being: will I trust God even if I never understand where this came from and why I am feeling like I am? Because if my trust in God depends on my ability to understand, then my faith is screwed. If the peace I’m seeking depends on my ability to understand, then I’ll always be in turmoil. If the answer I’m seeking is anything other than the presence of Jesus Christ, I’m absolutely done for.

Because the goal isn’t to understand. The goal is to trust.

The goal is to trust that while God doesn’t CAUSE hurt, sometimes he watches it happen with a heavy heart because he knows that’s going to set us up to be in the right place for a blessing.

The goal is to trust that in Christ is a peace that SURPASSES understanding.

The goal is to trust that the Holy Spirit gives power to raise people from the dead – which means he can restart and fix and repair any broken heart. It’s not even a thing for him, if only I’d surrender. Every single minute of every single day, surrender. Even if the surrender means forfeiting my desire for a reason.

Because maybe there is just no freaking reason.