A thirteen-year-old girl was very bitter toward her stepfather. She believed that he showed favoritism toward others in the family. He also displayed anger toward her on many occasions, which hurt her deeply. One day she decided to run away to her birth father or, if she was unsuccessful in doing that, she would kill herself.

At that point, she was challenged to write a list of reasons why God would allow her to be in a family with a stepfather who showed favoritism to others. On her own, she came up with twenty-one reasons why God may have allowed this to happen.

This project transformed her attitudes. A week later, she was invited to read and explain each of the points to a large group; her stepfather was in that group of people. As he saw his stepdaughter responding to family pressures from God’s point of view, tears came to his eyes.

Here are the reasons she listed:

1. To teach me to lean on God’s unconditional love
2. To teach me humility by serving those who reject me
3. To teach me meekness by realizing that what I “unjustly” receive from others will always be less than the punishment I deserve
4. To help me build true sincerity in my life by looking to God for praise
5. To help me give forgiveness and love to those who reject me, in the same way Jesus loved those who rejected Him (He did not get bitter.)
6. To help me begin investing my life in that which brings eternal rewards
7. To help me learn true security by structuring my life around things that will not change or be taken away from me
8. To cause me to evaluate needs and weaknesses in my character
9. To allow the Lord to become a “Father to the fatherless” in meeting emotional, spiritual, or physical needs in my life
10. To help me rejoice in all circumstances and to praise the Lord
11. To make me alert to the emotional needs of others
12. To help me realize the difference between “rights” and “expectations”
13. To help me understand more fully the sacrifice that Jesus made for me on the cross when I rejected Him
14. To help me experience more of God’s sufficient grace
15. To prepare me for leadership in God’s kingdom through suffering
16. To remind me to pray for my father and other authorities
17. To test my motives and attitudes as I obey my authorities
18. To motivate me to cry out to God
19. To demonstrate God’s desire for me to draw closer to Him
20. To bring me new insights from Scripture
21. To give me an opportunity to “return good for evil” by investing in the lives of my father and siblings