A laying down in the dirt

                            This morning I am praying for a friend who is going to the hospital to have a much anticipated baby girl, and praying for a friend who is also losing a much anticipated baby. It would have been her first, she had patiently waited out her 30s to marry the man God had for her, and finally her longing to be a mother was going to be fulfilled.
   Then there is this horrible loss and how do you pray? And how do you make sense of this? I don't always understand the ways of the Lord. I was just reading in Acts about the persecution of the early church. James the brother of John is killed right away then Herod sets his sights on Peter. Peter is captured and imprisoned to wait until a certain execution. However, Peter is miraculously released by glowing angels. He escapes unhurt. These two men have their stories told just verses apart, yet such different endings. It begs the question, does God love one more than the other? Is He blessing one and cursing one, or is something else we cannot see with our physical eyes happening? Can there be life through death? Does joy really come in the morning? Jesus is a good one to handle these questions. Out of His dark night of white hot suffering and the following coldness of death comes the radiance of the resurrection morning. Talk about joy coming in the morning! So possibly these sufferings my friend is living through and the seeming incongruence between the treatment of James and Peter are merely a planting. A laying down in the earth of precious seeds. Seeds that will not be wasted but simply need some time to understand why they are there.