UPDATE ON JOSE CRUZ..

Thank you all who prayed for Jose and his family during this time when things don't go the way we want. Unfortunately, these times are tough and on saturday morning we had to layoff Jose... I was worried about his reaction, his emotions, his family, him! What was he going to do? What can I do to help? Can this be prevented or postponed? I was consumed..with every thought you could imagine.. Well his reaction said everything...
When he found out, he calmly gathered his thoughts and through teary eyes said "I have faith in God and I know that this will be an uphill battle for me, but God will not leave me or dissapoint me. He will be with me during this time. I don't want to go through this but if God does, he will see me through and I will go in faith." Can you believe that? His response was of somebody not losing something, but gaining something.
This made me think you of few things. Why do we really follow God? When things are good, God is great, when things go bad, where is God?
"Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?"Psalm 10:1
"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?" Psalm 13:1-2
How many of us feel like this, even right now? But God is good, right? I guess we picture goodness as being synonymous with safety. Life and the mess that comes with it are everything but safe. Our faith is definetly found in our response to loss and suffering and why we follow God. I follow God because he is real, no matter what I go through, good or bad.
I can think back at some of the worst moments of my life, when I wanted to feel nothing, think nothing and be nothing... In those moments nothing mattered, I wanted them to go away:( But today I look back and would never want anyone to take away those times because they made me who I am today. Even though I didn't believe it then, God was...with me and with us.
The Bible says "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perserverance; perserverance character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."
Cruz, I know you'll read this, you told me a while ago how we're all auditioning for a show with God as the director. This life is not about us and we are not the main characters. Some of us will be cut at the end of the audition and some will stay. Its not about what we want because were not in control of the show. I'm sure your new role will be better than the one you're leaving, I'm going to miss you here bro..