We all have stories about our lives and certain struggles that we deal with. Most often, our struggles might water down the faith and trust we have in God and His plans for us. Today I’m sharing a little excerpt from a recent book read about a mom of four who was battling cancer. I pray that this stirs up your faith and encourages you to hold on to God despite the hard season of life you’re currently struggling with.
“Recently, Jason came in the room in tears and asked me to go and snuggle beside Harper Joy. He was letting her share all her words of her day with him before bed- her favorite time of the day. Then suddenly she turned to Jason and asked, “Is Mama going to die of old age or of cancer?” Jason struggled for the words, but found himself crumpled under his own grief. He came and asked if I could support him in answering. I walked down the hallway and climbed under the covers with my vocal, young daughter. This one longs for the words, to hear the explanations, and process her feelings out loud. She is very much like me. These moments are a gift to my own love of words, feelings, and expressing troubles of my heart. I snuggled close and she draped herself over me. Her eyes were big and tearful. She wanted to hear from me. She wanted the truth.
I knew this was a sacred moment, a moment where the truth was being asked. She wasn’t asking for false hope; she wanted me to love her with honesty. I told her I had heard her question, and I asked her my own question in response. I asked her if she believed God would meet her in both of those places. I looked at her face and wondered at her love, her beauty, her tenderness, and I asked her a question many grown people cannot answer or embrace. In the most painful fear and hurts of our lives, will God be good? Not just the simple: God is good, indeed, always good. Not the rote, recited, memorized answers we have been trained to give in the edges of life. But the asking: Is Jesus really good in the awful of cancer, fire, heartbreak, and devastation? In the face of all that is broken, is God good?
How do you speak to your young child of grace you struggle to have the imagination to behold? You just do. It’s the raw places of faith without sight. It’s the painful moments of preaching a sermon to yourself you know you struggle to believe. It’s the quiet prayer from Mark: “I believe; help my unbelief?” (Mark 9:24). How do you brave the impossible with children? How do you face these heartbreaking moments? You show up. You look at their faces and beg for God to give you His infinite imagination for the goodness of the days to come, the days for which you may not be present. You pray you will be courageous when the hard days come. You pray that, even as the end comes, there will be good days, good moments, that there will still be enough strength for love. You pray for the moments to continue. You pray for the grace in the raw edges to live well, embracing kindness you dont feel. And then you walk back to your room and weep.
Weep that your young child has to lie in bed at night and wonder if they will know their mama in a month, a year, a decade. You weep because you never imagined this will be the good story. You weep because your feet is so weak, but your weak faith is enough when coupled with God’s grace.
In every season of our lives, we meet the edges of life we never expected. The unexpected pain of life often leaves us only with the choice of how we will endure it. It could be a marriage you didn’t expect to break, a job you thought you’d never lose, a difficult child to raise. We all have unexpected hard, but how do we face it?”
Trusting God when the miracle does not come, when the urgent prayer gets no answer, when there is only darkness–this is the kind of faith God values perhaps most of all. This is the kind of faith that can be developed and displayed only in the midst of difficult circumstances. This is the kind of faith that cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken.
Nancy Guthrie, Holding on to Hope
“But without faith it is impossible to [walk with God and] please Him, for whoever comes [near] to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He rewards those who [earnestly and diligently] seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6 AMP
Life can be rough and tough but when you experience the dents and ditches of life as a Christian you ought to always trust God to deliver an expected end. The writer of the story of our lives knows what we need, when and how we need it. His timing is always perfect. Many a time when you feel maxed out, it’s a sign that there’s a plot twist round the bend. Keep holding on so as not to truncate the beautiful story of your life.
Behold, I am making all things new. Revelation 21:5
May Jehovah grant us the grace and strength to live out the purposeful lives he’s mapped out for us. Oh that we would have the faith to trust His leading every step of the way, testifying of His faithfulness even in the bleak moments. May your story be the good one that ends in our praise to Him and for His glory.
With Love, Esinam.
Virtuous Living 