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

by Laura Story

Me.

I took one step at a time. I did what I knew to do next. I moved one

foot in front of the other so that I wouldn’t stay stuck.

Despite my inner turmoil, my fears, my failures as a wife, my lingering doubts, and m...

I tried to offer the audience more of him ...

When I was busier than I should have been, it was rare for me to have a few quiet hours to reflect and pray.

My first thought was, This life doesn’t look anything like I expected it to.

I realized I had used the e-word.

Expe...

I grew up thinking that if I were a good Christian, if I had my devotional times, and did everything the Bible said to do, then God would bless me with everything I thought I needed or wanted.

All these things that I thought my life should look like, these things that even you label as good, I felt like you should have given them to me.

Another word caught my attention.

Sh...

Driving through the dark countryside, I realized I had expectations of God the same way all the disappointed people in my office had expectations of him.

just as I counseled the hurting people in my office, I asked myself where those promises were in the Bible, and I didn’t have an answer.

But had God kept the promises he made in his Word?

Our lives were broken in so many ways, yet somehow we were okay.

God had given us miraculous grace to

heal our hearts and our minds and to bless us financially.

You have blessed us, God. Even though we are going through this medical ordeal. Even though Martin still has effects from his brain tumor surgeries. Though we don’t have kids. Though I’m the one behind the wheel and working a full-time job, instead of Martin...

Growing up, I’d heard that God could sustain me t...

But now, Lord, I believe that you can sustain me through any trial. I believe in that like I believe in the air that I breathe. I am as dependent on you as I am dependent on the next breath I take.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if I hadn’t gone through all of this, my relationship with God wouldn’t be where it is today.

There was no way I could repay everyone who called, wrote, visited, brought meals, stayed with Martin, and comforted us.

I can’t repay them, and I can’t repay you.

But that was his point, wasn’t it?

He didn’t promise that we wouldn’t...

He promised that he’d be there when we did and that he’d ne...

I do have a real joy that no one can take away.

The joy comes because God’s promises are real.

They went from being theories I learned long ago, to the proof that I am alive and able to get out of bed and

face each new day. Things are still hard, but even during the chaos we’re okay. Martin and I have found j...

There were so many times when I wondered whether Go...

over the past fo...

he...

It has

been such a blessing to me to serve my husband.

thankfully, God didn’t give us what we asked for. Instead he’d given me something even more valuable—a deep intimacy with him and with Martin.

what if there are blessings that God offers that are greater than just a pain-free life?

What if it wasn’t about my husband getting better? What if that’s not the blessing? What if the blessing is about learning to do life while loving God and loving others—even in the middle of our disabilities?

And what if those blessings actually came through raindr...

What if the healing wasn’t from a doctor patching up Martin’s brain, but instead from the tears I’d cried out to God during all of th...

What if the trials we’ve walked through were really h...

God had bestowed blessing after blessing on us and none of them were the things we’d prayed for, but the things we got were better than anything we’d hoped or prayed for!

One day, I remember crying out in prayer, God, I can’t do this! I can’t admit in

public the voices of doubt in my head. I can’t explain my story when I still have more questions than answers.

Inside my heart, I heard God clearly answer, I’ve called you to this not because you have all the answers but because you’ve lear...

The more I prayed about it, the more I was convinced that God wanted me to exchange my “minister of music” title for “minister of vulnerability.”

God was asking me to reveal the brokenness in my life not to show how faithless I was,

but how faithfu...