Is God who is great enough to heal still good when He doesn’t? This question has plagued me since Maggie was first diagnosed. The answer never changes. Acceptance is often like Mississippi snow: here today, gone in an hour. How can I help it stick? As with snow, I am powerless in my fickle faith. It is He who provides reinforcing lessons for my good, His glory, and never my comfort. I reread these words I originally wrote in 2014 as a reminder –

Oh how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for them that fear you; which you have worked for them that trust in you before the sons of men! Psalm 31:19

God is great; God is good;
Let us thank Him for our food.
By His hands, we all are fed.
Thank you, Lord, for daily bread.

That familiar child’s blessing is one my siblings and I recited for years at every family meal. I rarely stopped to think about the words that fell in rote-like fashion effortlessly from my mouth. At some point I wondered at how anticlimactic it seemed to refer to God as “good” after calling him “great”. Why tack on an afterthought like “suitable” when He’s been declared “preeminent”? Doesn’t “great” indicate the first prize while “good” is a distant second or third? I obviously had a limited understanding of the meaning those two words find in their Writer. It took me years to appreciate my need for both a great and good God and One who is great in His goodness.

In November of 1993 when I was eight months pregnant with Molly, I was involved in a serious auto accident. After first losing control of my car and veering into the median, I was then thrown back onto the interstate in the path of an 18-wheeler traveling at 70 mph. I was broadsided with such force that the front passenger seat was left wedged into the space behind the driver’s seat. The opposite door stopped just short of my right shoulder. I lost consciousness and memory due to a fractured skull, and I sustained a large gash on my forehead, a collapsed lung, and a separated shoulder. I also went into labor. After being airlifted to FGH, labor was stopped, and I was treated and released three days later. I carried Molly to full term and delivered her on December 15th. If you know her, you know she’s no worse for the wear.

In the aftermath I struggled to understand and articulate God’s role in the accident, for I know He was there. As a Christian, I recoil from using words like lucky and fortunate, words supporting a random and mechanistic understanding of circumstances. Yet, I hesitated to say “blessed” hoping not to convey some special status of survivorship.

In His greatness, God can do anything. That fact is easy to appreciate for a girl raised on the miraculous exploits of Old Testament heroes. What is not a matter of childlike acceptance even for the grown-up me is that in His goodness, He always does what is right, sometimes at the expense of my comfort and personal preference. As the child of a great God, I could conceivably be spared the wrecks, trials, and sorrows of this life. So why am I not? Why is it that I must find my sanctification and learning in the very place I find my tears and scars? And why did I walk away with my life when some have not. God’s greatness is on full display for the world. That’s the part of His nature that is, if not understandable, observable.

It’s His goodness that sometimes takes a trained or trusting eye to see. Greatness is indisputable and objective. Goodness, on the other hand, is subject to interpretation. It’s all wrapped up in motive, intent, and purpose from our vantage point. In unprotected moments, it’s His goodness, never greatness, I question.

I watch the complex and colorful tapestry of my mother’s life slowly unravel as Alzheimer’s snips away unique memories and common abilities rendering her a dependent child again. Alzheimer’s and goodness? And there’s cancer. What sixteen-year-old deserves to house a foe whose very extermination is sometimes worse than its malignant presence? Cancer and goodness?

And then He speaks to me through His Word. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) Yes, He took on flesh so that we see not only His greatness but His glorious goodness. And in taking on flesh, He came near.

There are a few moments when I need to follow a cloud or pillar-like God. Most times, this journey included, I need the One who walks by close enough to brush me with His garment offering me a glimpse and touch of His hem. I have prayed for a thundering voice from heaven to make all things clear, but I’m grateful for comfort spoken in whispers. Yes, I fall in awe at the great I AM of the burning bush, but I yearn more for the Good Shepherd who picks me up and guides me not through a parted sea but beside still waters. His presence in my trials teaches me far more than His presence on His throne. In His greatness He has stored up treasures for me; in His goodness, He alone knows when, why, and how I need them. God is great. God is good.