creating a mosaic of meaning that you can call beautiful . It ’ s letting God be your source of life one day at a time , praying just for your daily bread , no more . It ’ s discovering that there are still good things to be discovered even in those barren seasons .
But here ’ s a hard truth that I ’ ve learned in my own “ not what I signed up for ” season : Trust can ’ t be trust until it ’ s tested over time .
My own experience with trusting God is rigorous . It ’ s uneven . It takes work . Every day I ’ m learning to trust Him , and even after almost thirty years of solid Jesus following , anything in my life that feels undone or unredeemed seems to mock me , suggesting that God isn ’ t steadfast in the way I think He is . After all , God might be trustworthy in the sense that He ’ s holy , that He ’ s in charge . That ’ s one way to see it . But when the anxiety lies heavy on your chest at night , when you cry in the shower , when you desperately long for God to give you something — anything — to keep you going when all you feel is darkness , distance , and silence , it can be hard to believe that He is everything He says He is — not just powerful and in control but good , loving , and merciful . The true task in these seasons is to believe that in the deepest parts of our pain , God is still trustworthy in all these ways .
He is powerful . He is in control . He is good .
Think about that . Those three constants often stand in tension with one another : Powerful . In Control . Good . Which words can you fully claim to be true about God based on your own relationship with Him ? Where has your unexpected season created doubt , tension , or anger ?
To answer those questions , I have to take a minute to get in touch with the honest place in myself . I have to dig deep and pull out some painful and undone memories . When I do , I realize that I can trust that God is powerful and in control — I ’ ve seen enough to know that ’ s true . But what causes tension for me is His goodness . It ’ s so hard to admit and even harder to write , but as I examine my own story with its painful places , I want to ask , as a child to her father , “ But how could this be good ?”
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