From Pain, Comes Joy

Have you ever noticed just how much life can change in the matter of seconds?

How you learn to guard your heart, because someone broke it. How you learn to make people earn your trust, since so many others have shattered that easily given trust. How you learn to pray continuously (and try your hardest to do so) because there is no way you can do life on your own. How you learn that life is always changing, and so are the people who become a part of it.

Over the past year I have encountered many situations where I have fallen flat on my face in pure vulnerability and brokenness. I would have been the happiest I could ever remember being, then all of a sudden I’m flat on my face again. I didn’t get why. What did I do wrong to deserve all of this hurt? Why did God put people in my life that were just breaking my heart, seemingly, every time I turned around? Why did he have me going to a camp where I was falling in love with children who could be taken from me at any second? I didn’t understand why it had to hurt so bad. Then I came across a quote,

“I will not cause pain without allowing something NEW to be born, says the Lord."

I came across this quote just days ago, and ever since it has been the background on my phone. I have been in pain, but I know that God is doing something in my life. He is changing something, which is causing me pain, but he is making room for something NEW. I have no idea what that something new is. But I can only imagine how amazing it is going to be, considering that which is being change in my life right now.

In Sun Stand Still, Steven Furtick says,

“When God removes something from our lives,

It’s not because He is trying to take away something good.

It’s because he is trying to make room for something better.”

            I want you all to know that when you come to a point in your life where you feel like God is stripping something from your life, it doesn’t mean that that thing is always bad. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely bad things in our lives that we need to be rid of, but those aren’t the things I am talking about. I’m talking about the perfect job we have had that all of a sudden is gone, or the strong friendship that you had with your best friend that all of a sudden is nonexistent, or maybe your child unexpectedly passes away. These things that God takes from us aren’t BAD things, but He has this ultimate plan that we can’t see, and he needs to strip us of these things in order for his plan to be put into action.

            Believe me, it doesn’t make losing those things any less painful. But it may give you peace in your heart knowing that God is at work in your life.

            I can look at my struggles and my heart aches now and be glad that I go through those times because that is when I see God working in my life the most. I see these things happening and I am in so much pain, and yet I can’t help but smile knowing that God is in control and he is working.

            I definitely have my days where I just break down in a pool of tears because it still hurts, but I have to pick myself up, and wipe up my tears and pray to God asking him to carry me through. Because I know he has something on the other side that is a more beautiful outcome than I could ever imagine.

            I want everyone to be able to have such a strong faith, that even though we can’t see the outcome, we still take the steps God lays in front of us. Take those steps up the staircase even though you can’t see where they lead.

           

Hebrews 11:1

       Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  

God didn’t say it would be easy, but He said that He would carry us through.