In loving memory of John Badami 12/28/1965 -10/31/2008. I know most of you who knew John Badami will not believe it has been 10 years since he made his way back home to be with God. When I think about losing my beloved husband John, my children losing their father, and family and friends losing him as well, I believe most of my struggle and disappointment is due to unmet expectations. He was young and we all expected him to live longer. We all prayed fervently for him to live and expected God to answer yes and allow him to live. Many of us asked, “Why?” and did not get an answer. These last 10 years have been a painful journey to grow and work through his loss. Through it all I have learned a lot. But one of the hardest truths I have had to embrace is that God is not concerned that we have all of our expectations fulfilled as much as he is concerned about our response when we are facing unmet expectations. We need to voice our wants and needs to God with faith, but just as important as our being faithful is our being eager and surrendered to seek God’s will and not our own. In Hebrews 4:16 it says, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to HELP us in our time of need.” God does not promise he will give us everything we want or ask for, although he wants us to ask with total faith, not doubting his power. But as it says in Hebrews, if we approach him, we will receive mercy and grace, to HELP us in our time of need. What it does NOT say in Hebrews is that he will take away our pain, hardships, hurts, financial problems, death, suffering, etc. We just have to open our eyes, our hearts, our souls and receive it and see it from a spiritual perspective. I began this journey focusing on what God did not do for me or what prayers God did not answer for me, but God’s plan was to give me a quick, hard slap of perspective across the face, which is aligned with his truth and Hebrews 4. In Ecclesiastes 3: 11 it says, “He (God), has planted eternity in the human heart.” And Romans 1:19, “for the truth about God is known to them instinctively, God has put this knowledge in their hearts.” We are born with perspective, godly perspective, but we are the ones who mess up that perspective along the way. We cannot lose heart and we cannot lose sight, as Christians, of what this is all about…and it is about God’s refining us, so that we can make it to heaven and be with him in eternity and the people we love that have gone before us. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:12-13
