It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

by Lysa TerKeurst

Humans are very attached to outcomes. 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 question God when it doesn’t. And walk away from Him when we have a sinking suspicion that God is the one who set fire to the hope that was holding us together.

Sometimes to get your life back, you have to face the death of what you thought your life would look like.

If I want His promises, I have to trust His process. I have to trust that first comes the dust, and then comes the making of something even better with us. God isn’t ever going to forsake you, but He will go to great lengths to remake you.

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.

And after digging around in the Bible, I was surprised where God wanted me to start. Not with them. But with me. Not with their words. But with my fear. After all, I will never be able to control what other people have going on in their heads or in their conversations. But with the help of the Holy Spirit in me, I can absolutely learn to control how much I allow the fear of their opinions to have access to my life.