Who do you pray for? Do you have a written list like I do or can you just remember everyone off the top of your head? I have two lists, one with my Bible and journal and one beside my computer for online and Facebook friends. There are so many people with needs that my heart just breaks at times.

So many people ask the question “Why?” about life issues that throw us for a loop. I have, for sure, more often in the past than now. As I’ve come to grips with my own health issues, I’ve learned that the answer to that question is more than our minds can handle.

We serve a huge God, the One who actually made our brains. He formed us from clay and breathed life inside of us. He has a lot of reasons for why He does what He does and for Him to explain it to us would be impossible. That’s what I believe. I also think that He allows events to occur to shape us into the people He wants us to become.

I was watching the first “Hobbit” movie the other day as I enjoyed that story when I was little. I can relate to Bilbo Baggins. That hobbit was quite comfortable in his hobbit-hole, reading his hobbit books and eating his hobbit food. I don’t know quite what he did for a living, but Bilbo was comfortable. Then he met the Wizard and suddenly his life became very uncomfortable. However…I know he was a changed hobbit by the end of the story.

Sometimes God allows events to happen just to shake us out of our comfort zone and make us see a bigger, broader landscape where He wants to take us. Since I became ill, I’ve had more time to read His word and build on the foundation He began years ago. He has taken me by the hand and led me step by step into a different place than I was two years ago.

Yes, I’m still sick. Does that mean God doesn’t heal? No. He has healed my mind and my spirit as He has urged me along His path. Sometimes God allows sickness in our physical bodies to bring about healing in our spiritual ones. Any step closer to the perfection that is waiting us in Eternity is healing to the sin-damaged spirit He has placed within us.

I don’t know if that was J.R.R. Tolkien’s purpose in writing The Hobbit. I don’t know if he wanted his readers to venture away from their easy chairs. I think he knew it takes something huge to do that. Tolkien was a Christian who was one of those responsible for leading C.S. Lewis to Jesus, or so we are told. I don’t know how they met, but I’m sure that God allowed that to happen as well. He allows the good and bad, the sun and the rain, to fall on all of us. How we respond is up to us.