For My Good
I sit here in my office, spinning back and forth in my chair. My mind wanders and stumbles across the thought of how good God has been to me during this past year and a half. Don't get me wrong there has been plenty of NOT GOOD the past year, but there has been so much GOOD in my life too.
For starters, leaving China was absolutely awful. It was stressful to leave so suddenly and at the start of a now global pandemic. Not knowing at the time that we would not be returning, we didn't get the chance to say goodbye to our friends and students or pack up our own belongings in our apartment. All of that was NOT GOOD. Covid, the reason we initially had to leave (for only two weeks, or so we thought) was and currently still is NOT GOOD.
However, because of Covid our school sent us back to our home country where we were able to see friends and family, which was GOOD. Although teaching online and from a timezone very different from my students was NOT GOOD, I learned how to prepare teaching materials for at home learning, something that may prove useful in the future, GOOD. Despite scouring the internet for decent tickets back "home" to China and finding ones at a really good deal, nearly every country suddenly closed their borders making it impossible at that time to go back... NOT GOOD. Even though I was frustrated and angry with God that we still couldn't get back, He knew better... I ended up being exactly where I needed to be so that I would see the doctors I was meant to see and discover my brain tumor early enough to receive surgery in a timely manner and by an excellent surgeon and medical team, which was VERY GOOD.
After all of that, I learned that my school back in China had no positions available for me, an elementary teacher stuck outside of China and unable to commit to a full-time work load, NOT GOOD. But I was able to be put on medical leave allowing me to keep my health insurance, VERY GOOD. Although I would keep my insurance, I would not be paid and with my husband not having a job here, hoping we would have been back in China by now, our income was going to disappear completely.. NOT GOOD. But God knew what He was doing. He always does. The week after I received my final paycheck from my school my husband started a job as the evening custodian at my church, only blocks away from my parent's house where we have been living (which is a whole other not good but also very good situation), SO GOOD! Prayers getting answered before I even have the chance to pray for them a second time.
Cancer treatment hit me hard in October and November of 2020, resulting multiple ER visits.. do I even have to say it? NOT GOOD! Yet, even in the middle of some of my hardest days, God was GOOD! I had the same ER nurse two visits in a row. Even though these visits were weeks a part, he remembered my mom and I. Plus he was very kind and funny.
My contract at my school in China ended this June and I never got the chance to say goodbye to my coworkers or students, NOT GOOD. But before that contract was even fully finished I was hired as my church's children's ministry director: part-time, flexible schedule, and I get to teach kids about how GOOD our God is!
Through all the the hard crap the past year and a half has brought... He has been so very GOOD to me.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
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