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We say we trust God but behind the scenes we work our fingers to the bone and our emotions into a tangled fray trying to control our outcomes. We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would.
We cannot control our outcomes. We cannot formulate how the promises of God will actually take shape. And we will never be able to demand any of the healing from all the hurt to hurry up.
But pretending away reality never makes things better. It just causes you to implode on the inside while smiling on the outside. That’s no way to live.
Sometimes to get your life back, you have to face the death of what you thought your life would look like.
But disappointment isn’t proof that God is withholding good things from us. Sometimes it’s His way of leading us Home.
Shattered to the point of dust. At least when things are broken there’s some hope you can glue the pieces back together. But what if there aren’t even pieces to pick up in front of you? You can’t glue dust.
What if disappointment is really the exact appointment your soul needs to radically encounter God?
I always want miraculous fixes without pain.
Feeling the pain is the first step toward healing the pain. The longer we avoid the feeling, the more we delay our healing. We can numb it, ignore it, or pretend it doesn’t exist, but all those options lead to an eventual breakdown, not a breakthrough.
It’s not that I expect God to fix everything about my situation. But I do expect Him to do something.
But in the end, it was the pain that God used to save my life.
The pain was what kept me in the hospital. The pain was what kept me demanding the doctors run more tests. The pain was what forced me to address what desperately needed to be attended to within my body. The pain was what made me allow a surgeon to cut my belly wide open.
The pain was what helpe...
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Had God taken away the pain, I would have gone home, my colon would have ruptured, my body would have turned...
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I now have a completely different picture of God standing beside my hospital bed while I was hurting and begging Him to help me. He wasn’t ignoring me. No, I believe it took every bit of holy restraint within Him to not step in and remove my pain. He loved me too much to do the very thing I was begging Him to do. He knew things I didn’t kno...
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But here’s the craziest thing of all. God doesn’t want you or me to suffer. But He will allow it in doses to
increase our trust. Our pain and suffering isn’t to hurt us. It’s to save us. To save us from a life where we are self-reliant, self-satisfied, self-absorbed, and set up for the greatest pain of all . . . separation from God.
No human is strong enough to withstand seeing too much of God’s plan in advance. It must be revealed daily. And we must be led to it and through it slowly.
God will eventually make everything okay.
The longer we avoid the feeling, the more we delay our healing.
The peaceful predictability of what you thought would be your life is suddenly replaced by a very unexpected darkness and silence you aren’t used to. It’s
These are his thoughts. This is his script: Not. Good. Enough. We hear it when we try to create. We hear it when we try to be brave and start anything new. We hear it when we try to overcome what has been and step into what could be.
breaking secrecy with another hurting human feeds our souls with compassion.
If you have ever experienced an unexpected darkness, a silence and stillness you aren’t used to, know that these hard times, these devastating disappointments, these seasons of suffering are not for nothing. They will grow you. They will shape you. They will soften you. They will allow you to experience God’s comfort and compassion. But you will find life-giving purpose and meaning when you allow God to take your painful experiences and comfort others. You will be able to share a unique hope because you know exactly what it feels like to be them.
A soul-shaking silence and disappointment about my current situation is what goes to bed with me in the dark. And it’s what’s there with me in the middle of the night when I’ve had another nightmare. And this reality is still there each time my eyes open to the next new day. And the next. And the next.
You, too, have memories that still hurt. Realities that make you swallow back tears. Heartache that pumps sorrow through your veins. Sufferings that seem forever long. And you’re disappointed that today you aren’t living the promises of God you’ve begged to come to pass. You’re tired of this disappointment lingering a little too long and being a bit too hard.
those needs won’t be met tonight. Maybe one day, but not today. And that’s what it is like to be so very human—hurting but still hoping.
And He loves us too much to answer our prayers at any other time than the right time.
I don’t want this suffering to last this long. It’s already been nearly three years. And I’m just so very tired.
It’s hard to remember what solid ground feels like when you’re shaking in the middle of the tightrope.
you’ll need to handle the promise.
When we think the process of longsuffering is unbearable, we must remember it would be deadly for God to put us up on that solid rock before we are strong, firm, and steadfast.
God will take every cry you’ve uttered and arrange those sounds into a glorious song.
You will have a starring solo in which those notes birthed from tears will help ease the ache of another.
You are anchored to the hope of God that so few ever truly find. You, dear longsuffering soul, are a Job of your time. One who will be misjudged and misunderstood. The enemy will try to trip you and rip you to shreds with the hurtful hisses that all this longsuffering is for nothing. Don’t you dare listen. I’m holding a purple heart in my hand that tells me something different. And it’s not just for me. It’s for you too. I knew it the minute the counselor put it in my hand, it should be pinned on your chest too. And if you were here with me in my quiet house today, I’d do just that. Close your
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It’s our choice whether we stay stuck in our hurt or get renewed in our hearts.
There are still files in my mind that need to be cleaned out and cleared away. Otherwise, my efforts to move forward will have cords of attachment to my past hurt that are always threatening to pull me back and take me down.
He’s handpicked us to be a display of His good works here on earth. And trust me, in eternity you will want to be chosen for this.
Both the problems placed on us and the problems within us due to sin need to be released—surrendered to God.
Sin breaks trust. Therefore, we can’t expect God to entrust a calling to us before our full confession, cleansing, and having a new heart created in place of our broken heart. When trust has been shattered,
it has to be rebuilt with believable behavior in our actions and reactions over time.
Our longsuffering won’t seem nearly as long or nearly as painful when we know God’s perspective is to use it all for good.
This is how we get through this life between two gardens. This is how we make sense of things that don’t make sense. This is how we can believe God is good when life isn’t good. This is how we can face hurt upon hurt, disappointment upon disappointment, longsuffering upon longsuffering, and still run our race with oxygen filling our lungs, peace filling our minds, and joy filling our hearts. This is how we can accept reality but live reassured. This is how we wrestle well between our faith and our feelings. Don’t lose sight of where we are headed. Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus, who will show us
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way.
Always.
The enemy uses disappointments to cause so much trouble in an unsettled heart. A heart hungry for something to ease the ache of disappointment is especially susceptible to the most dangerous forms of desire. Especially when that heart isn’t being proactive about taking in truth and staying in community with healthy, humble people living out that truth.
the Lord doesn’t want any to perish but all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
surrendered, healed, and healthy selves, the ones God made us to be. What my friend failed to realize was that she was being true to her most unhealthy self. If we are going to be true to ourselves, we’d better make sure we are being true to our most surrendered, healed, and healthy selves, the ones God made us to be.
Our enemy never wants a testimony to come from our lips. Therefore, he never wants us to experience freedom, truth, and redemption.
that knowledge would be too heavy a burden for today?
