Stuff happens…no way of getting around that. There have been bumper stickers and t-shirts made with all sorts of ways of expressing that. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good person or a bad one, young or old, man or woman…stuff happens to us all the same. Some things you can avoid by making wise choices, but some things will happen regardless. As the bible says, ‘the rain falls on the righteous and the wicked.’ When stuff happens though it is interesting to see a person’s reaction. What separates people is outlook, or perspective.

I bring all this up because I recently had ‘stuff’ happen to me. You know, one of those accidents that occur at the most in opportune times, usually on a great day, in the middle of doing something you enjoy. My wife had surprised me at work by picking me up and taking me to get coffee and hang with our two daughters. Our youngest was turning 7 months old that day and we needed to celebrate. Long story short, I hit my head, split it wide open down to the skull, get rushed to the ER, then to surgery to have it sliced and diced and stitched up. No more celebration and I didn’t even get to drink my Americano. 

The rest of the day my wife kept saying all the things that could’ve happened that God prevented from happening. Like not being close to a hospital, my wife not spotting me in time, my oldest daughter being a part of the accident (she was in my arms when it happened), skull damage, a concussion, it actually happened on the best possible place on my head, didn’t get my eye, my mother in law could come get the kids, and the list goes on and on. 

The point I’m trying to make is, we could’ve spent the rest of the day focusing on me being laid up in the emergency room and spoiling our fun time and the inconveniences that it caused, but instead my wife kept the right perspective about things. You see, God doesn’t always keep us from harm or accidents but if we look in the right places, we’ll see His handiwork helping us through our hardships. There is a lot of joy in that and He certainly deserves all the praise no matter what ‘stuff’ happens. 

God bless and be encouraged that God is at work in your hardest moments, big and small, because of His great love for you.