"Why Me, Lord?"

Come, My Little Angel, by Diane Noble, is a novella about a very faith-full and positive little girl growing up in a large, poor family. She writes a play and plans with her friends to produce it for the whole town (about 500 people). As if that weren’t a big enough endeavor for a 10 year old, she plans to sell tickets to her play to raise money for lumber so that their fathers can build a church for the small town. But her main motive through all of this is to bring back the joy she remembered seeing in her mother when she was younger – before the death of one of her siblings. Her mother had stopped singing and praying – and believing – when her prayers were not answered for her sick infant to live. Through this sad experience, she had not only lost all hope for life, but was determined to 'protect' her children from ever being hurt by teaching them to NOT believe!

This is a conversation between mother, Abigail, and her 10 year old daughter, Daisy. Daisy’s example of not letting go of her faith and dreams had been an example to her mother. But only when circumstances that Daisy couldn’t control, made her plans begin to seem hopeless, did Abigail really see the error of her faithless example. Now she wanted to correct her mistake and bring Daisy out of her depression by teaching her that all was not lost, even though things didn’t go as she had planned and worked for. Abigail continues to speak to her daughter, even though at first Daisy refuses to be comforted:

“And there’s something else I found about dreams and hope.”
Daisy leaned forward, a spark of interest showing in her eyes.
Abigail smiled. “It’s maybe the most important thing of all.”
“What is it?” Daisy finally asked.
“When those impossible dreams finally do come true, the hole in your heart carved by sorrow will cause you to fill with more joy than you can imagine.”

This really struck me when I read it, because it reminded me of something that I, myself, experienced - many years ago, through a situation too personal to share. Perhaps it’s a key to the answer to that age-old question regarding suffering: “Why me, Lord?”