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

by Lysa TerKeurst

Though we can’t predict or control or demand the outcome of our circumstances, we can know with great certainty we will be okay. Better than okay. Better than normal. We will be victorious because Jesus is victorious (1 Corinthians 15:57). And victorious people were never meant to settle for normal.

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

We see that all those harsh realities aren’t the end, but rather a temporary middle space. Not the place where we are meant to wallow and dwell. Rather the place through which we will have to learn to wrestle well.

I have honest feelings where I want to throw my hands up in utter frustration and yell about the unfairness of it all. To deny my feelings any voice is to rob me of being human. But to let my feelings be the only voice will rob my soul of healing perspectives with which God wants to comfort me and carry me forward.

We think the shattering in our lives could not possibly be for any good. But what if shattering is the only way to get dust back to its basic form so that something new can be made?

Dust doesn’t have to signify the end. Dust is often what must be present for the new to begin.

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.

So true

To trust God is to trust His timing. To trust God is to trust His way. 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. In the quietness of all that doesn’t feel right, this truth does.