Nothing Wasted

Today, the youngest child, the beautiful daughter, turns 18.  Gone are the days of dress-up and make believe, as she now steps boldly into this “grown-up” world, full of hopes and dreams and plans.  Macy Lynn Dowdy entered the world with a strong, lusty cry and brought so much joy to us from the very beginning.  She seemed to have a song in her heart right from the start, singing almost before she could talk.  But there was a time she stopped singing, and her song was almost replaced by silence, almost gone before the notes even found their melody.  I thought it would be a while before I wrote about this particular part of her/our journey, but I asked her if I could share, and in her usual way of wanting to help others, she gave permission.  Macy is one of the most empathetic people I know, and can see the beauty in almost anyone and any situation.  But beginning around middle school, she could no longer find that beauty in herself, and struggled through several years of clinical depression.  I will not go into the details here, but suffice it to say, it was a heart wrenching, gut wrenching time in her life and in the life of our family, in my life as her mother.  While all the reasons are complex and not to be minimized, what we came to realize on the other side of the struggle was that the depression and despair was rooted in the spiritual, and not so much the biochemical.  How she began to dig out of that deep crevice of despair, as we and others talked her down off the precipice, was nothing short of a miracle.  Depression slowly turned to hope, and beauty rose from the ashes, as we prayed and struggled, and claimed God’s promises over her life. 

I often think about and lament the fact that those years were stolen from her, but then I was reminded recently that nothing is wasted if we allow God to redeem it.   This passage from the Eugenia Price novel, The Beloved Invader, spoke to me so powerfully.

Sometimes she felt that everything her husband believed was based on the simple fact that God will not waste anything if we give Him a chance to redeem it.  She watched him lean toward the people, his penetrating eye, his expressive hands entreating them to believe that “He is not only a Redeemer of our sin, but He is a Redeemer of our circumstances as well.  He will not waste a single problem, a single heartache, a single tear.  Our God is a Redeemer God, and He stands minute by minute before us, inviting us to let Him have the sorrow, to let Him have the pain, to let Him have the disappointment.  To trust Him to make something useful, something creative of every tragedy that darkens our lives.”

Nothing wasted – no tear, no heartache, no tragedy.  He does not cause it, but he can use both joy and sorrow if we trust Him day by day.   Maybe you are living with regret over “lost” years and situations, but let this truth wash over you, that He is a Redeemer God, and NOTHING is wasted.