When you just want life to feel good again
(I originally posted this message to my personal Facebook account on June 21. 2023. I’m posting it here in case someone who’s stumbled across my blog is hurting and needs to hear it.)
There was a time when I wondered if my life would ever be good again. So much had changed so fast, my psyche struggled to adjust. There were nights when I lay on my bed in the dark in so much pain I couldn’t find the words to express it to God in prayer. All I could do was hold my bible against my chest and literally cling to God’s word, trusting He could hear my heart. When I didn’t fall asleep holding my bible, I slept with it beside my head so that when I woke up in the middle of the night I could reach up and put my hand on it. There were times when I hurt so bad, my heart literally ached.
At the time, it seemed the only way my pain would ever end was if God somehow intervened in my circumstances and put my old life back together. It took a lot of prayer, support from friends and family, and biblical counseling for me to get to the place I am today. Not a completely sorrow-free place, but a good place. A place where I truly enjoy life again and see it and my new circumstances as a gift. A place where I’m able to see that because of what’s happened, I have opportunities to serve and minister to others that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
My life will never be the same as it was before the unexpected happened. I will never be the same. Sometimes things happen to us that change everything permanently. And that's okay because God stays the same. He never abandons us. I think that's hard for us to believe because we think that in order for something to be good, we have to be able to see right away what the benefits are going to be. But that's not true. God's wisdom is infinite. He works in mysterious ways to do us good, and it often takes time before we are able to see that God never takes away something good without giving us something better. Sometimes that "better" is more of Himself.
I also think that it's hard for us to believe that God never fails us because that's so not how we are. We abandon people. We betray them. Or we want to help them, but we’re just too messed up and weak and limited in our own resources to do them any good. But not God. He never fails to know the best thing to do, and He never fails to do it. He doesn’t grow impatient with us. We can’t disappoint Him because He’s known everything we were going to do since before we were even born and He chose to love us anyway. He doesn’t love us because we’re worthy to be loved, He loves us because it glorifies His mercy and compassion in a way that wouldn’t be possible if we were deserving of it. And His plan is to do us the ultimate good: to give us a sorrow-free future and the opportunity to enjoy Him forever.
I used to think I knew what a “good” life looked like, but I’m learning that a good life isn’t found in a certain relationship status or a particular set of circumstances. A good life is a life of daily surrender. A life where each morning you say “What have you got on the agenda for me today, Lord? I don’t have much to offer, but what I have is yours. I trust that You love me and that you're going to take care of me.” A good life is one where instead of dwelling on what you don't have and feeling bitter about it, you recognize the blessings God has given you and appreciate them. A good life is one where you're able to rest in knowing your sins have been forgiven and that even if you experience pain or disappointment that day, you have the hope of heaven.
So yes, there can be a good life on the other side of the unexpected! A very good life! I'm thankful that by God's grace I’m living one!