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

by Lysa TerKeurst

We feel very certain how things should turn out. But we live in the uncertainty of neither being able to predict nor control the outcome.

I ride this struggle bus. But I’m never comfortable with the fact that I can’t grab the wheel

and drive it back to Normal. I make such big assumptions of

Some will live their whole lives missing the chance to see all the good God has placed around them just for them.

pretending away reality never makes things better. It just causes you to implode on the inside while smiling on the outside.

Sometimes to get your life back, you have to face the death of what

you thought your life would...

“Be grateful and positive, and let your faith boss your feelings around.”

If the enemy can isolate us, he can influence us.

to strip out the cause of our disappointment would also rob us of the glorious hope of where we are headed.

We live in a broken world where broken things happen.

Death is but a passageway at God’s designated time for us to finally escape this broken world full of imperfections and be welcomed to the Home we’ve been longing for our entire lives.

We don’t think about fixing things until we realize they are broken. And even then we don’t call in the experts until we surrender to the realization we cannot fix things on our own.

If I want His promises, I have to trust His process.

• We live in a broken world where broken things happen.

He said, “Lysa, I don’t really like how people throw around the term miracle. But honestly, it’s the only word I know to use in your case.

“God longs to help me.”

But this obedience He learned from suffering compelled Him to trust God beyond what His physical eyes could see.

Obedience is the daily practice of trusting God.

So, the only way to gain the kind of trust in God we must have to survive and thrive in this life between two gardens is through the things that we suffer. Suffering. The very thing that makes us wonder if God is cruel. The very thing that makes us question God’s goodness. The very thing I couldn’t understand in that hospital bed. The very thing I don’t want to be part of God’s plan ever, ever, ever. Not for me. Not for you. Not for any human. But here’s the craziest thing of all. God doesn’t want you or me to suffer. But He will allow it in doses

suffering isn’t to...

God loves me too much to answer my prayers at any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way.

“hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12).

God is powerfully at work in your life and situation. What would it look like for you to rest in that truth today?

Help me trade my unbelief for the beautiful relief that I don’t have to figure this out. I just have to fix my thoughts on Jesus and how He will lead me. I mark this moment as a moment of trust. I declare I don’t have to understand. I just have to trust.

I realize, none of us can just quit life when life falls apart. But we can quit some things.

I cut through the deafening silence of emptiness in my life by filling my home with praise music.

When you suffer, slow becomes necessary. Slow becomes good. One of the best parts of this season of suffering for me was a life that doesn’t require shoes.

When you live slow for a season, the Son has access to the parts of you normally covered up by everyday put-ons.

We put on God theories and higher-than-thou opinions about others to cover up our own desperate and depraved areas in need of attention.

Tear-soaked pillows don’t shame you with

their opinions, debate your sanity or spiritual maturity, or armchair quarterback all you should have done better. But people do.

sidebar conversations laced with judgment but masked with “let’s pray for her.”

tackling big things like anxiety and worry was like trying to manually inflate a pool float the size of Kansas. It can be done, but you’d probably pass out and then quit way before you even see a smidge of progress. But child-size beach balls? They are doable, even for the average lung.

Fear isn’t something you can sweep up into a pile and discard. It isn’t physical. It hovers and haunts us in the spiritual realm. It attacks us in the unseen.

The enemy wants us paralyzed and compromised by the whispers and doubts and what-ifs and opinions and accusations and misunderstandings and all the other hissing handcuffs crafted by fear.

I don’t want to stand exposed, because I don’t know how to do it and feel unashamed.

The enemy wants us paralyzed and compromised by what-ifs, opinions, accusations, and misunderstandings.

“Adam and his wife were

both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25).

When my biological dad said, “I wish I’d never had children,” my interpretation that gave this statement power to fuel my fears was “You aren’t wanted.” When the girls in middle school said, “Loser Lysa,” the fuel to my fear was “You aren’t accepted.” When the boy I had a crush on said, “I just like being your friend,” the fuel to my fear was “You aren’t pretty enough.” When the other mom said, “Your child is the worst,” the fuel to my fear was “Your kids are going to be as messed up as you.” And then came the most hurtful of the statements, when my husband told me he’d met someone else. The fuel to my fear was “All the worst things you’ve ever wondered about yourself are true.”

But if someone says something about me that I’ve already wondered about myself, I probably won’t be able to discern if it’s ridiculous or not. I’ll invite that

statement in and offer it something to drink and a cozy seat in the corner of my mind. And before I know it, it’s moved in like a bad roommate I never intended to have.

“You’ll hate what you see. You in your exposed form is shameful. You should be afraid of who you really are.”

“Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). And “Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11).

But instead of blaming and shaming them, God traded their fig leaves for fur. He handmade garments of skin to cover them. This foreshadowed the shedding of Jesus’ blood

cover our sin.

But don’t miss the tenderness God had for His children. And don’t miss God’s tenderness for you.

Whatever statement was spoken to you that came against the truth must be called a lie! God’s Word is the Truth. And His Truth says you are a holy and dearly loved child of your heavenly Father. You are wonderfully made. You are a treasure. You are beautiful. You are fully known by Him and lavishly loved by Him. You are chosen. You are special. You are set apart. No matter what you’ve done or what’s been done to you, these words of God are true about you.

We must let God’s Word become the words of our story.