God Is Just... Even When the Answer is No

If we're being completely honest, life has been pretty easy for me. My parents have always been able to provide me with what I needed and mostly all of what I wanted. "No" isn't a word that showed up often in my frequently used word list.

The summer before my second year of college, my parents and God-siblings decided that they'd begin to teach me the art of hearing no, and functioning when the answer is no. It was uncomfortable, hard to understand (I know this probably sounds so bratty, but bear with me) and down right awful to hear at first. But as the summer progressed, and I heard it more often, I learned that no wasn't the worst answer in the entire world to hear.

In fact, hearing no was sometimes necessary and the most beneficial answer for that situation.

I'm grateful for the preparation, because what I didn't know was that the biggest "no" I'd ever heard was shortly coming... and it wasn't going to come from my parents or my siblings -- it was going to come straight from God.

[We're going to backtrack a bit here]

I remember being 16 years old and praying that Jesus would send me mentors, other people outside of my parents, who could help mold me and impart into me the things I'd need for this life. Not that my parents weren't great, but because there wasn't anyone outside of them pushing me... and I knew I needed that.

Shortly after I began to pray, Mrs. Angie came into my life. And she came in the only way I knew her to come into any situation: laughing, smiling, and like a ray of sunshine. She was loud, extroverted, smiley, and REALLY blonde; she was the exact opposite of me and that was exactly what I needed. She was there for me during some of the toughest decisions of my life, heard God for me when I couldn't hear him for myself, entrusted me with her sweet sweet babies, and gave me gluten every now and then (even though she was the toughest on me about keeping to my gluten free diet, haha!)

I can vividly recall when she could first tell that something was going on in her body. She'd asked me to babysit the kids and when I came over she explained everything that was going on, and then she had me pray for her (she made me do that a lot, and it really developed a longing in me to pray for others). Shortly after that, I found out that she had breast cancer, and it was a very aggressive kind.

But I wasn't moved, and I wasn't shaken, simply because she wasn't moved or shaken. I followed her lead.

A year later God our healer had worked a miracle in her life. She'd been completely healed from cancer and life seemed to be good. It wasn't an easy journey for her, but I never saw her waiver, never saw her move, and I never saw her shaken.

Spring came and left, and when I got home I got news that I wasn't quite sure I liked at all: they found a tumor on her brain. What dumbfounded me the most was that she never, not once, questioned God. She never asked why, never questioned if she'd really been healed, she was firm in her stance that she was healed, and that the tumor was another opportunity for God to prove himself to be who we already knew Him to be in her life.

A week after her surgery to remove the tumor, I remember sitting in my family library, looking at my Mom and saying, "I feel like we should check on Mrs. Angie"... and I was right. Things had taken a turn for the worse and were going downhill very very quickly.

I remember stepping into the shower, turning on my worship music, and begging and pleading with God to heal her. I wanted her here. I needed her here. But I also remember at the end of my prayer, after I'd ranted and raved -- I asked God to do what was best for her. He was her Daddy, and I knew that He knew best.

July 28th, 2016 -- Jesus did what He saw best, and he brought her home.

God had told me, and so many others, no.

God. Said. No.

Every lesson I'd learned over the summer came honing in like a ton of bricks.

"No is not the end, Nysi. No is not the end."

If anything? That is what this taught me: No is NOT the end.

What I came to realize is, as hard as the no was here, it was a yes for Mrs. Angie.

Our loss, was her gain.

Our sadness, was her joy.

Our heaviness, was her ticket to complete and total healing and freedom.

Our no, was her yes.

That's the thing with no, although it may seem like forever -- it's not. The no that I got a year ago, will one day be a yes when the Savior returns; and what a roaring yes it will be!

On the days when I can't understand why He said no, and on the days where that no just seems too hard to handle, this is what I remember:

The Father that healed her once, is the same Father that called her home. He did not change, He did not waiver. He STILL healed her -- just not the way we envisioned.

A Father ALWAYS knows and does what is best for his children.

He is just, even when the answer is no.

And there is always a yes within the no.... it just may not look like what we think it should.

I don't know what your no was about, or what it may have looked like, but I can assure you of this:

No is not the End.

God is Just.

And there is always a yes within the no. Just keep pushing.