God never says "No," except for one reason - to provide a better, "Yes." Let me explain.
I stopped at an old neighbour's place the other day to keep a promise too long past. A few years ago, he and his wife had joined the Preacher and me and two other friends in our dining room. We ate ice cream cake. Sang "Happy Birthday." Laughed. At some point, smiles on all our faces, I picked up my camera and snapped.
It would be the last photo ever taken of one of us. It was that photo I'd come to deliver. When I set it on the table, our friend stared a long time. "That's the best picture I have of her," he sobbed. Then, "Will you sit down a bit? Do you have time?"
I made time, and learned more about the woman I knew only as a lovely, jolly woman who loved Jesus and served others with joy.
"Before we got married, she had a good job in Winnipeg," her husband told me, that afternoon. "I had an old Fordson tractor, a rented farm, an old Essex car, and one cow. She left her job for a hard life with me. I don't know why she did that. I had nothing to offer her."
"Not true," I said. "You had what she wanted most. You."
He kept talking. "When they told her she had cancer, she declined treatment. The doctor said she was one of only three people he'd treated in the last several years, who didn't ask, "isn't there anything you can do?"
She used a wheelchair for the last few years of her life. "She had so much pain." He shook his head. "I got mad at God. He promised us we could move mountains. That if we ask ANYTHING in his name, he would do it. But he never took away her pain."
Life got very dark for our friend. He'd lost his smiling wife, and he started to question God. One day, he flung himself onto his knees beside his couch. "God," he prayed, "just give me one reason why you didn't take the pain away. Just one. I'll live with that."
"Suddenly," he said, his eyes far off. "I saw a lawn, sort of. A grassy area, but most of the grass was worn off. I thought it was maybe a schoolyard or something. Then I realized it was heaven."
Then, "just as clear as I'm seeing you, I saw her. Running around. Joyful. Jumping up and down." She'd even come closer to speak to him. To make sure he knew.
He told me he sensed that was God's answer. "I let her have so much pain, so she could enjoy heaven more."
"OK, I can live with that," he told God, and he told me they're on speaking terms again.
I thought it may encourage someone to hear one man's story.
There's always a greater "Yes." Believe it.
