Bringing Good out of Evil

When Christal was fifteen, she was raped. She felt dirty and contaminated, and when she did get up enough courage to tell someone about it, the person she had trusted told her it was her own fault, that she must have done something to cause the attack.  This was not the first time Christal had been abused---her home life had always been chaotic---but this current blow was terrible.  “I began to drink to drown the nightmares that returned every night,” she says, “and I pulled away from my family. One night I began to cry and could not stop.  I kept asking God why this had happened to me.”

Christal left her house in the dark and walked up to the middle of the only bridge in town.  On the way, she shouted at God through her tears.  “I told him that I was hurt and angry and didn't understand why these things had happened to me,” she says.  “I knew He had placed me on this earth for a reason and that reason could not be my being the object of horrible acts but I was tired, scared and angry.  I needed his help and understanding NOW!”  Christal began to pray, begging God to send her some kind of sign, something to assure her that she had a purpose here on this earth---or else to take her life.  She looked down at the cold water underneath the bridge.  If God didn’t respond, she knew she would jump.  Anything to end her agony….

At that moment a red pick up truck pulled up beside her.  The driver was a blond, blue-eyed teenager.  “Our town was very small,” Christal says.  “Everyone knew everyone, and I should have known him but I didn't.  He was heading out of town, and I knew everyone living in that direction for at least a hundred miles.  But there he was, a complete stranger.”

The teen looked at Christal with a kind and concerned expression. “Are you okay?” he asked.  “Or do you need help?”

Help?  Christal started to laugh.  What could HE do to mend her life?  And suddenly she felt a calm, loving warmth filling her with joy, a feeling so deep that she did start to laugh, crying at the same time.  “No, I—I’m fine,” she told the boy. Somehow-—in a matter of minutes—-she felt healed.

“Then let me give you a ride off this bridge,” the boy suggested.  Once again Christal felt unusually joyful.  God was speaking to her through this teenager, telling her to abandon her suicidal thoughts.

She would obey.  “It’s okay,” she told the boy.  “I’m going home, right now.”  She turned around and took a few steps, then turned back to wave.  But the truck—-and the boy---had vanished, and there were no taillights disappearing into the night. Christal felt goosebumps as love again swept through her. 

From that point on, Christal lived her life with a sense of purpose.  She stayed with her aunt in another town until she could recover from the physical damage that her drinking had caused.  When she returned, she graduated in the top 20% of her high school class.  Today she is the proud mother of two beautiful children, and again a student after a career change, studying for an advanced degree in education.  “My life has been a constant journey leading me closer and closer to God,” she says. “I feel blessed and am grateful for all that I have been entrusted with.”

If God loved Christal, why didn’t He simply prevent the bad things that happened to her, instead of allowing them to occur?  We do not know for sure, but there is sin in the world, and there are innocent victims of that sin.  However, God has promised to bring good out of every situation for those who love Him, and He has done that for Christal.  Let’s pray that He will do that for each of us.

(C) 2004  Joan Wester Anderson   www.joanwanderson.com

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