“ Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see .” ( Hebrews 11:1 , NIV )
Recently , a sweet gal sent me a message on Instagram .
She wanted me to know more about her story .
She thought she ’ d been obedient to God for the past decade after an immense heartbreak , but she was questioning that now because her life was still really hard .
She wanted to know if I would be so positive and confident in trusting the Lord if I hadn ’ t met Chaz , who I ’ m now married to .
Such a fair and understandable question .
Trusting God without seeing the redemption we thought we ’ d get to see by now can feel like the deepest betrayal of all . It ’ s also what builds our faith , but sometimes we ’ d rather have relief than another learning opportunity . I sat with her question for a while . I don ’ t hang out in my DMs often and rarely get to respond as much as I would like to . But since I read this message , I knew I needed to respond . And I didn ’ t want my answer to just gloss over her deep pain with a few cliché sentences and a Bible verse . She deserved more than that . And so do you as you may find yourself navigating something similar .
This is what I wrote back :
I ’ ve spent many nights staring up into the sky , bewildered as I felt my disappointment turn into grief turn into numbness turn into distance from God . There were so many times when I thought God was about to turn everything around , but then things got worse , not better . Some of my darkest days were when I could not make sense of what God was allowing . And my fear was : Because God allowed all of this , what else might He allow ? Slowly , I have realized I cannot attach my hope to God
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