#TheNitty-Gritty

He was sitting in a wheel chair in the hospital and his dad was sitting next to him. It had been about two weeks since he waked up after being in a semi-coma for four days. The head-on collision had caused an enclosed head injury, a Traumatic Brain Injury. All the pieces of the puzzle composing the picture in his brain had been tossed up in the air and had landed in disarray. His dad asked him what was he sitting in and he could not remember the right words. He was floundering in an enormous sea of forgetfulness. When he got home after being in rehab for four months, he would sit in front of his computer trying to communicate with someone and always a dictionary was at his knee. When you can't remember a word,  where do you start looking in a dictionary? Perhaps you have an idea what letter the word begins with, but there are hundreds of words that begin with that letter, so, then what?
You just look and look and try different avenues to get there. It takes time and effort to put the pieces of the puzzle back together and get the picture right. It gets gritty.
In my book "The Treasure is the Trip" I tell the story of my son's accident and unusual circumstances surrounding it that caused me to know that it was no 'accident', that God's hand was working. God is good. The goodness of His character is unquestionable. He has a plan for each of us, a plan for good and not evil. It may appear evil or hurtful at times, but God has the long view in mind and the temporary is just that 'temporary'.
When I was a lab technician working in a hospital lab, we did bleeding and coagulation times on brand new baby boys before circumcision to make sure they were not bleeders. Their tiny heel had to be stuck with a lancelet and of course it hurt. There were some who didn't want to do it because they didn't want to make the baby cry. I would volunteer because I knew their safety was at stake. They needed the hurt to make sure they wouldn't bleed to death.
You can bank on this - God knows exactly what you need and even though it hurts for a while, it will reap good in the long haul as you trust Him over the nitty-gritty.