They were utterly astonished, saying, “He has done all things well; He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” Mark 7:37 NASB

I was weary from the week and to be honest I kept having to take baby steps to get to the next thing. When I was a child I used to play a game called “Mother May I?” The object of the game is to reach the mother and the finish line. Baby steps are advantageous to the mother but frustrating for the children, it takes so much longer to reach the finish line when one is shuffling along as opposed to giant steps that are a much wider gait.

 Baby steps these days were apart from the “Mother May I?” and they looked a bit more like,

“Get dressed for work.” 

 “Get to the car.” 

“Choose your radio station, pick the one with the Bible quiz every morning.”

“Okay now Swing by the McDonalds and grab a sweet tea with a lemon. Go to the one that gives you a tiny bag of individual lemons.” 

If it were a “giant step” morning it would be “Go to work.” 

I was baby stepping my way to work in the cold rain and had pulled over to the aforementioned McDonalds. I paused in the parking lot long enough to turn the radio back up and I could hear the radio host speaking. The host sounds like a pastor to me. His words are always measured and deliberate. He pauses when he asks a question and he is friendly and kind. The radio host’s unconfirmed pastor’s voice came through the speaker. It was calm and measured and I recognized he was praying. 

He does this every morning. He chooses a people group and he prays for them; he asks the audience to pray with him. I used to feel awkward praying with a person I have never met, but I don’t anymore. My tea purchase had caused me to miss for whom we were praying for today, and for what. 

Some days we have prayed for husbands; we have prayed for wives, for stay at home parents, for people in the entertainment industry. We have prayed for those who are in a job search and those in the clergy. I was unsure who we were praying for this wet dark morning but he made a statement that was sobering and shook me to my core. 

He prayed, “If I should die in the next hour, may my heart cry out forever ‘My God has done all things well. Amen”

As soon as the statement registered I felt the pang of conviction, I heard that still small voice of the Spirit speak and I knew without question that should I die in the next hour that would not be what my heart would cry out. There was no way it could, if I couldn’t honestly say it for one minute now, how could my heart cry for eternity possibly be “My God has done all things well”?

I was shook, shaken, flabbergasted, astonished, bewildered, stupefied, taken aback, and all other vocabulary-list-worthy words conveying shock. 

“My God has done all things well.” 

It was a statement and not an interrogative, but the realization in that moment as I sat frozen and fixed, was that I realized my heart cry is actually “My God has done all things well, question mark.” 

Seriously, all things? All the things? I mulled over in my mind. All things? I began to dialog directly with God. 

“All things? No Lord, not all things.”

“All things Amy.” 

“But Lord, not all things. What about this circumstance that resulted in that outcome that has left these consequences? Not these things?”

“All things Amy Elizabeth.”

But Lord, all things? Really? But Lord you know right now, this moment, this hurt and season of despondency I am feeling, this is done well?” 

“Yes. All things. Have you forgotten my very nature, that I am incapable of not doing all things well?”

When He asks me questions, He knows I am forced to think.

I had not forgotten. The realization was, I had not even considered that aspect of His perfect nature. I had somehow in my mind compartmentalized and separated His perfection with His doing all things well. I had relegated His doing things well to the first six days of creation when he saw it as good. 

Tears came to my eyes and before long my face resembled the windshield in front of me. I told the Lord I was sorry and asked Him for His forgiveness that He had long ago already given me, and I thanked Him for being kind and patient, for abounding in love and for showing me that true nature of my heart and of His. I asked Him to help me to remember to take baby steps each day remembering and living out, “If I should die in the next hour, may my heart cry for eternity be. ‘My God has done all things well.’”

“You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees.” Psalm 119:68 NIV