By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
In a scene from one of my Western romance novels, the heroine struggles with memories of her Christian mother’s favorite counsel: “All things work together for good.”
She struggles because things are not going well. Bad things have happened. A lot of bad things, and the scripture-turned-platitude chaffs my heroine’s sense of fairness.
Certain external conflicts and setbacks are beyond her control. Her less-than-perfect life has landed her in a stranger’s home where she is trying to do her best. At one particular moment of helplessness and frustration, she does the only constructive thing she can think of: she decides to make a cake.
Flour dust taints the air as she sifts the proper amount into a bowl. A person could choke on flour—a tasteless death for sure.
Then she adds Baker’s chocolate, a dark and bitter ingredient.
Next comes sugar—everyone’s favorite but sickening in great quantities.
Eggs follow, not exactly tasty in their raw condition.
None of the ingredients she adds to her mixing bowl are appetizing on their own, but when worked together, they combine to create a chocolate cake—something very good indeed.
As she pours the batter into a baking pan, she sees how her efforts reflect what God does in her own life. He takes the bad—the less-than-perfect things—and works them together into something good for her. Because she loves Him.
Because He is good.
If God can make light and earth and sky from nothing, and man—made in His image—from dirt, imagine what He can do with our difficult circumstances and challenging situations. Our wrecked lives.
Imagine what He can do with our surrendered hearts.
And we know that all things
work together for good
to those who love God,
to those who are the called
according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28
~
The kitchen window framed a perfect view of the neglected garden. Had Cade’s heart been left in similar condition after losing his mother, sister, and the—well, the woman Willa had mentioned?
An idea sparked in Mae Ann’s breast. A tiny flare that hinted at purpose. Could God use her to break through Cade’s wintered soil and stir life there again? Perhaps that was why she was here and not with—
No. God had not taken Henry’s life. She had to believe that.
As soft as the parson’s blessing had whispered earlier that morning, words she’d learned at her mother’s side rippled through her like a silken thread. All things work together for good to them that love God.
She did love God, but did she love Him enough? He’d allowed her mother to die penniless and abandoned by Mae Ann’s father, though the dear woman had insisted God was working all things together.
And He’d allowed Henry to be gunned down in cold blood—an act she would never understand. How did God plan to work that together?
Her fingers ached, and she looked down to see them clenched and white at the knuckles. Taking up her apron, she tied it on, then wiped the eggs clean and gathered other ingredients for the cake. ~An Improper Proposal
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.
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