Convincing Stuff

So it has been a while since I have gotten to connect with the blogging world (mainly because of a weekend away at a Young Adult Chrysalis walk), and I feel so inspired and overwhelmed by Jesus Christ. I have been reminded repeatedly in the past few days of one of my favorite verses, Romans 8:28, and it's validity and power. It says "and we know all things work together for good for those who love the Lord, and are called according to His purpose." Simple enough, right? Well, if we take out the word "all" and replace it with "some" or even "most" then it becomes simple. However, for some reason that word "all" seems to trip us up. We can make all the good things that happen to us fit in the verse easily, we can even take the initial bad situations that turn good fit in, but we can't seem to make sense of the terrible things that don't seem to have a favorable foreseen outcome.
I was reminded this weekend on that Chrysalis walk of the power of Romans 8:28. As I shared my story of how I was deep in my own transgressions and squandering everything God had given me to the point I wanted to give up on life, I felt a little apprehensive, maybe even a little embarrassed by my honesty. However, I was told time and time again after my talk about how God was using me and how my story had helped someone else. I received even more confirmation when a girl told me yesterday that my story was so similar to hers she felt like she was standing there with me. I didn't want to share my past, and my past may not even be as bad as some, but I did, and God's promise in Romans paid dividends.
It makes me think of one more trying time of my life when I lost one of my dearest friends in a car accident not even a year out of high school. It was one of the toughest times of my life, but it also healed a massive amount of pain I had been concealing. I even marked and highlighted a verse in one of my good friend's Bible I gave him. (he was family to my friend that passed) Can you guess the verse I marked? Romans 8:28.
We know that God doesn't make empty promises, so let us try to live today and every day henceforth with joy knowing it will all work out.