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No matter how hurried she felt, no matter how upset she was to be so late, Susannah had to drive slowly on account of the weather, which turned the Orchard Grove roads into nothing more than black sheets of ice.
Something Grandma Lucy had said at the end of her prayer time rang through Susannah’s mind like the clanging bells in the church’s Easter bell choir.
What God has opened, no man will shut.
It sounded so biblical. So true. How could God’s plans ever be thwarted?
But was there more to it than that? Of course, God had a plan for every believer’s life, but what about those people who lived in open rebellion to him? What about those people like Jonah who completely disobeyed? If Jonah hadn’t repented and returned to Nineveh, would God have destroyed the city right then? Or would he have just raised up another more willing prophet to spread his message?
God is omnipotent. All-powerful. Is it possible for his plans not to succeed?
Not one of all the LORD’s good promises failed. Each and every one came to pass.
Susannah’s thoughts swirled as chaotically as the snowflakes falling from the sky, dancing and descending with no discernible purpose or sense of order.
Each and every one came to pass.
Of course, there were promises in the Bible, promises that Susannah knew to be true. Jesus would one day return. He would establish his kingdom on earth, a kingdom without pain or mourning or sin. A kingdom where every man, woman, and child would worship the true King in all his splendor.
And there were promises for her own life too. Promises that God would wipe away all her tears. She believed it to be true even though for now she’d only caught short glimpses, ephemeral flashes of the comfort that would one day soothe over all her wounds.
He is the God who finishes what he begins, Grandma Lucy had said. He is the God who brings it to completion.
There were so many things Susannah couldn’t understand. Why God would give her such a passion for the mission field only to stand by idly when her mother’s death and her sister’s disability trapped her in Orchard Grove for the rest of her life.
Why God would bring such a strong, confident man like Scott into her life only to ask her to give him up after everything that happened. To sacrifice her own happiness and future in order to care for the sister she loved.
More than anything, she was afraid that one day all this sorrow, all these disappointments would make her bitter. She had worked with caregivers like that at the assisted living home, people who twenty or thirty years ago might have been compassionate and gentle, but who got tired and burnt out and jaded by the difficulties of their jobs.
Who resented the patients entrusted to their care.
Dear God, please keep my heart from growing hard. Please give me the patience and tenderness I need. Please help me to love Kitty as well as Mom did. I can’t do any of this without you, Lord.
The snow continued to fall as Susannah pulled her car into the driveway. She didn’t know how to protect her own heart in the face of these sorrows and disappointments. She didn’t know how to make sense of her grief, grief over burying her mother and losing Scott.
But she was convinced that God had promised to never leave her or forsake her. As she made her way up the slushy, icy walkway to her front door, she knew that he would have to be enough.