why i am not an atheist, part 2

At my new job I watched a man sitting in a wheelchair at a table. He looked at my display table and decided he needed to talk to me. He energetically pulling himself out of his wheelchair and haltingly took about ten steps to get over to me. He asked me several questions, and then I asked him about his disability. He told me he had Multiple Sclerosis for twenty years. A few months back his MS kicked in again which was why he was in now in the wheelchair. “When I was first diagnosed with MS, it was pretty hard,” he said. “I love to fish. I decided I was going to fish in all 50 states. I made it to 46. Michigan was the best. But I just figured there was nothing I could do about my MS so I wake up each morning happy to be alive.”

“Really?” I asked him.

“I have a lot of friends who give me a lot of help. He pointed to a lady sitting at his table. “That's my wife,” he said. “She's been been solid as a rock.”

“Amazing,” I said. “The Lord's been good to you.”

His eyes lit up. He nodded his head. “Yeah, He sure has.”

A few days ago I met a young man who told me he was retarded. “You are not retarded,” I told him. “You're plenty bright.”

“I was in a car accident five years ago. I was in a comma for four weeks. They told my mom and dad I would never talk again,” he told me.

“Wow,” I said. “Then you're doing great!”

“My memory is not good,” he said.

“My memory is not much good either,” I told him. “From what I can see, the Lord's been really good to you.”

His eyes also lit up. “He has been!” he said. “God has been good to me.”

Exactly where I get off telling people who are in the midst of a tragedy that the Lord has been good to them, I'm not quite sure. For some reason, it seems like the appropriate thing to say.

I've known too many people who have gone through tragedy. It scares me, for I see no reason why tragedy shouldn't happen to me. But something strange is going on. Tragedy typically does not make a person especially unhappy. As often as not, those in the midst of tragedy are grateful to the Lord for His daily blessings.

This is my next reason why I am not an atheist. —the Lord seems to especially reveal Himself to those who are in difficult circumstances, which seems to me like the appropriate thing for Him to do. “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Luke 6:20