Crossroads Counseling - Lacey Deese, Clinton 
I sit face to face with the hurting, the hopeless, the depressed and afraid. And I learn from them. As a Christian counselor, I have the privilege of stepping into people's stories and walking alongside them for a while, and I get to know them. I learn what they want, what they need, what they are missing, and who they long to be.
And goodness knows they do not need empty promises or meaningless words. None of us do. What they need is hope - real hope - and a safe place to ask hard questions - questions like "Is God really good?" So after traveling a while with many fellow sojourners, and after coming face to face with my own days of darkness, loss and pain, I have begun to explore God's goodness and what it really means to say "God is good."
Admittedly, after years of counseling, I am more mystified than ever about this particular trait in him and how we reconcile his goodness with the pain and loss we each face. His goodness sure doesn't always look like my description of "good." How do we know he is good when we see and experience so much suffering? And how do I relay his goodness to those who see him as negligent at best and, at worst, responsible for their pain?
After watching my 5-year-old nephew shrivel from chemotherapy; receiving a phone call that my 30-year-old sister-in-law had unexpectedly passed away; and losing my first baby to an unexplainable miscarriage, suffering and loss are not unfamiliar to me. But what I have also learned is, they are not unfamiliar to God either. And I still believe it: He is good. God is and always will be good.
If all he ever did was to send his Son to die in my place, I would still be able to call him good. That alone displays his goodness - his kindness to all of us - like nothing else. If he never healed my nephew, if he didn't give our family strength and comfort after Delana's death, and if he didn't choose to restore my womb and later give me two healthy babies, he would still be good.
But how we have muddled this up and misused our words and watered down this pure and holy trait about our good God. It's how we talk:
"I was running late to work this morning, but every light I hit was green, and I found an awesome parking place and actually got there a few minutes early. Man, God is good!"
"Yep, God is good. I totally forgot about my exam and didn't have time to study, and when I got to class, the teacher had decided to postpone it to next week!"
"I have been praying about how to pay my mortgage, and then I got a bonus at work. God is good!"
Somehow in attempts to give God glory and recognize his good gifts and graces, I am afraid we are loose and irresponsible with our words. And it just doesn't work. It doesn't work for the poor and starving, for my grieving clients, or for folks who can't imagine having a car or a job to drive to. It doesn't work for us to correlate God's goodness with what he DOES for us. We have heard it said - "first-world problems" - when folks refer to their iPhones breaking or their cars not cranking. Could it be we've also invented "first-world blessings"? And if so, then is God only "good" to us over here in the United States, where there's not much talk of famine or hunger or martyrdom?
If God's goodness is measured by how quickly he magically alters traffic lights in our favor, then what on earth are we saying to the majority of the world about who God is? What are we saying to each other and to ourselves? And what am I saying to my clients? To the ones who come to me for real hope and real answers?
Here is what I am learning: God is good AND God does good.
God IS good - he gave his only Son, rescuing us from hell, and he is a never-changing, ever-loving, ever-present God. This makes him good.
And he DOES good too: He heals, he provides clear direction, he links us with friends and gives us laughter and sunsets and healthy babies and second chances and, OK, maybe even green traffic lights. But these are all GRACE gifts - extras. And to me, they are good gifts, but they are not what make him good. These good things are not always promised, and if he never gave one of these, he would still BE good.
He is with martyrs and cancer patients and grieving widows and mothers with empty, aching wombs and dusty little children with swollen bellies and tear-stained faces. He is still good in those dark places. We do not have to be able to say these tragedies are good. We just know his presence never runs from them. As I stated earlier, he is not unfamiliar with darkness.
So he is good.
And the added gifts? They are grace, just extra. When he also chooses to give good or DO good for us, this is lagniappe. And so I thank him always. If his good gifts were to go away, his goodness still would never cease.
So I speak of his goodness. Then I speak of his good gifts and grace. And this is how I have come to know him and to reconcile what didn't always add up for me, or sometimes for those I counsel. You see, when I sit face to face with a hurting soul, I can't start spouting out that God is good in spite of their suffering. I first want them to know he is with them down in it. That is part of his goodness too. He runs to the brokenhearted. And I can show him to them.
He is good because he gave his Son to redeem us, and in doing so, he robbed death of its sting and gives us a final victory - a peace to look forward to even in the darkest times of this journey. I happen to be joining my clients in such dark times, and this is the hope I want them to know.
Lacy Deese is a Christian counselor with Crossroads Counseling Center in Clinton.
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Briar Hill
Grace - Brandon
