When God Doesn't Fix It: Lessons You Never Wanted to Learn, Truths You Can't Live Without

by Laura Story

He took time to grieve. But when that grieving season was over, he m...

This wasn’t an instant thing for David; it happened over time.

When it finally did, David said it wasn’t because of anything he did, but because of everything God did.

Psalm 40 taught me it was okay for me to come and worship God just as I was.

the Psalms revealed to me that worship had very little to do with emotion and everything to do with God’s faithfulness.

Worshipping God was an act of David’s will, not his emotions.

the simple act of worship birthed the desire to worship.

MYTH: I WORSHIP BECAUSE I FEEL GOOD. TRUTH: I WORSHIP BECAUSE HE IS GOOD.

One of the paradoxes of marriage is that wives want their husbands to be great men. And men want their wives to be great women. But we forget that to be truly great, we have to help our spouses be great.

We have to get our expectations in sync and then find ways to help our spouse succeed.

Despite our innate selfishness, we can choose to be loving and giving in any given moment.

No matter how far apart Martin and I were on any issue, the one thing we always tried to do

was be together on our knees asking God for help.

As long as we are married, there will be new challenges. The key is for both of us to adjust our expectations.

We need to see marriage not as a union to make us happy

but as a union to mak...

In my job at Perimeter, I often helped people reset their exp...

When someone came into my office and told me they were...

God or felt that somehow he’d wronged them, I’d ask t...

“The disappointment you feel seems to imply there was some sort of promise or commitment that God didn’t follow through on.” “Yes! That’s exactly right,” they’d tell me. “He didn’t!”

“Okay, let’s take a look and see if we can figure out why.

Can you show me where the promise you’re claiming ...

they couldn’t find a promise that people wouldn’t die, jobs would go to the most deserving, or ...

In fact, sometimes they would find examples of just the opposite—innocents dying, workers being paid equally despite unequal work, and spo...

t...

teary-eyed...

for the first time, understood th...

promised them any of the...

they’d say, “But he’s a good God, and I’m a good person. Why wouldn’t he want me to have that?” Or, “Why would a good God let that happen?” Or even, “That’s not ...

The betrayal and disappointment they felt was real, but the promises they thought h...

there’s a big difference between a bargain that we initiate and a promise that is found in God’s Word.

As gently as I could, I would help them see that their disappointment didn’t come from God breaking a promise but from their own false expectations.

They expected God to do what they wanted...

be obedient to their commands. When he wasn’t, they were disappointed...

Scripture says we’re not good people. We can’t know the mind of God. And unconditional love sometimes means unequal treatment.

We were the ones who disappointed God, but he loved us anyway.

Sherri always asked me the hard questions. After being gone a few days on tour, she’d say, “How much

time did you spend onstage singing about God versus privately reading from your Bible?”

After I had driven with Martin to a nearby state and done a weekend of solo concerts, she asked, “How much time did you spend serving strangers this ...

Her questions pierced the protective shields I ...

But Sherri and my other friends cared deeply about whether Laura Elvington was thriving in her walk with the Lord, loving in her marriage, and balancing family and work.

And they cared less about the Laura Story they heard on the radio.

I was mostly happy with how things were going publicly; but personally, there were still days I felt as though I was barely limping along.

The disconnect between who I was onstage, and who I was off of it, could be hard to reconcile.

I loved leading worship, but there were times I didn’t feel like I c...

I worried that if I said out loud the things that troubled me, everyone would find out what a fraud I was.

What if I admitted there were days I didn’t know what I believed? Would the audience run? Would I lose

my job at the...

If I said I didn’t understand why we prayed so hard and yet Martin was never healed, or admitted I was disappointed in God for not answering our prayers, would churches stop inviting me to sing? How could I tell the public that my husband wasn’t hap...

Every night that I took the stage, I’d cry out some version of this prayer: Oh, God, this is too much! This is too big for me. What do I possibly have to offer them? And every night, he responded in my heart with the same one-word answer.