Lesson #18

Lesson 18: I used to think that if you were a relatively good person...relatively good things would happen to you. And if you were a bad person, well, bad things would be more likely happen to you. Obviously, I learned as I got older that this is not true at all. You can be a great person and have bad things happen (which I have mentioned previously in one of my earlier posts).

My first experience with a good person having something bad in their life was Sam's mom, Armandina Andrade. She was the nicest person I had ever met; she always made you feel like the most important person, and could make anybody smile. She and Sam's dad raised their kids very well, she was an educator for 30+ years, a devout Methodist, a follower of God. She fought long and hard during her battle with stage 4 colon cancer. I remember she would always say that the doctors were wrong because she felt fine. God was working in her and through her, we all saw this. Back in 2002, the doctors told the family that she had less than one year to live and that they should put her in Hospice. She didn't want that...she miraculously defeated the odds that she was given...she was convinced that she was just not ready to give up. She lived 5 more years after that. She was an incredible lady who inspired all those around her. She was a teacher, a P.E. coach, special education teacher, and a diagnostician...she touched hundreds of lives, if not more. Not one ounce of badness in her. Yet she was put through a trying time (to say the least); she remained strong, positive, and always, always kept her faith.

I've heard that if you think positive, positive things happen to you. That leads me (or led me) to believe that bad things shouldn't happen to good people who think positively. That's not the way it quite works.

The Bible says this: Though the Lord gave you adversity for food and suffering for drink, He will still be with you to teach you. You will see your teacher with your own eyes. Your own ears will hear Him. Right behind you a voice will say, "This is the right way you should go," whether to the right or to the left. - Isaiah 30:20-21

Even though we experience adversity and suffering in our lives, God is still here for us and teaching us.