Be Still

 

Trust

When we are in the midst of our greatest trials in life, it is often that we find ourselves asking why? Questions cross our minds such as, “Is God good” or “Does God love me?” if he allows us to experience such distress and torment? We often find it difficult to trust God when we are feeling such big hurt. Trust is defined as firm belief in reliability, truth, ability or strength of someone or something. What we must remind ourselves of during times of darkness is that God doesn't change, he is ever faithful, he is truth and strength, but the way we respond to Him and the circumstances in our lives is what actually changes, not God. He promised in John 16:33 “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!” He has told us from the beginning that life on this earth would not be easy, and he's right, it is a battle every day. He doesn't tell us to believe that he is our savior and we will have peace in the world. He says believe in him and we will have peace in Him. This is not peace in the moment, but peace everlasting knowing that we must experience these trials as we go, but we know how it will end, with eternal love in the arms of our savior. Isaiah 26:3-4 “ You will keep in perfect peace those whos minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.”

When we suffer, it is hard to see the good that may come from our suffering, but this is actually a pattern that we see in many areas of our life in order to grow, mature, and develop. Adolescence is a trial, you experience hormonal changes, acne, body changes, emotional distress from peers, etc. But all of that is necessary to mature and become an adult, to one day have children of your own and to have the life experience to then help them with their own trials. In a dating relationship, if you never have arguments or hard times, your relationship doesn't mature to the point where you can see lifelong marriage as an option. Often times when a couple experiences their first hardships once they have already become married, they do not have the maturity to handle the stress and the marriage falls apart. But as a society, we want things to be easy and when life gets hard we bail, that is why divorce rates are so high. However, it is essential to go through these trials and come out the other side stronger in order to know that your marriage can out last the honeymoon phase. After all, our vows do not sugarcoat things, we promise to stay true in sickness and health, in good times and bad. In our bodies, when we want to gain strength, we must challenge ourselves by taking our bodies to the brink of exhaustion breaking down muscles in order to rebuild it and become your optimal self. In order for their to be a restoration process, there must first be something to be restored from. Our spiritual self is the same: it must mature. God wants to see that you will follow Him through the good times and the bad, through sickness and health, that you are committed to your decision to follow Him. The bible does refer to us as a bride. After all, great things are at stake. Romans 8:18 says “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us.” How great will that reward be considering it is greater than how devastating some of our hardships can be?

Think about stress. Stress can be good or bad. It can motivate us to get things accomplished such as meeting deadlines, or it can break us down. What is the difference? The way you respond to stress. Are you reacting out of emotion? Often that leads us down the path of fear and destruction, impulsive thoughts and decisions. Or do you respond out of commitment and allow the stress to motivate you to accomplish things you never imagined possible. Do you allow yourself to draw nearer to Him during these times?

During the darkest time in my life, I continued to ask myself, WHY? When I was stuck in the why, I struggle to see the WHERE. I needed to focus on where was this trial taking me rather than why was I going through this. When I learned to be still during my trials and draw closer to Him I was able to see reminders all around me. These were reminders that could come from no where but God and He was trying to show me that He was faithful and I would be okay. My son was diagnosed with autism, my grandfather (who was my inspiration) passed away, and I had to step down from running my own therapy clinic which I had worked my whole life for. I felt lost in a spiral of negative thoughts and I struggled to break free. But time after time He brought people and experiences into my life that were too strong to be a coincidence. I was married to my career for the longest time. I had always said that I put faith and family first, but the truth was that everything seemed to come second to my job. I was always away from home, and never able to take the time away for my family that they needed. Until the darkness. This time of my life I was forced to acknowledge that I could not do it all anymore and that I had to make a more active decision to choose God and my family first. So I made the decision to walk away from my job and focus on my family. I thought that if it was where God wanted me to go, it should be easy. But it wasn't. I felt like I had lost my identity. I felt that I was losing everything that was good in my life. I felt that life was so unfair. After a year of anger and tears, I finally decided that enough was enough. If God was always faithful, why was I not being faithful to Him and trusting that He pushed me in the right direction. So I stopped reacting out of anger and hurt and started trying to see God around me. I did. I saw Him in my ability to spend time on school field trips with my son, which I had been unable to do with my first two boys. I saw it in the fact that former patients of mine, whom I had helped during struggles of their own, were now the teachers, therapists, and educators of my autistic son. The church that we had started attending shortly after he was born (3 years before the autism diagnosis) was one of the only churches in the area that offered a program for special needs children. This provided us immense support and respite and allowed my husband and I opportunities regularly to make sure the two of us were remaining a strong, loving front. Often times having a child with special needs results in the breakdown of a marriage, but my husband and I only grew stronger together. God was telling me that He was holding me and keeping my son safe and that everything would be okay. I wrote and published a Children's book about my son's experience with autism, and accepted a second job at my church taking care of babies which gives me more joy than I could imagine. Without walking away from my career, that I had made my life, I would not have been able to truly put God and my family first. Now we are thriving. My children are progressing and growing in all the ways that are important. We are making memories in ways we never could have before. And my autistic son? He is defying expectations every day. Before I walked away from my management position, my son was struggling to potty train. Within the first month of me spending more time at home with him, he had mastered it! Many milestones like this quickly followed. He is now getting ready to enter 1^st grade and has been in a mainstream classroom for the last 2 years! But I couldn't focus on all of this good that was happening all around me because I was so focused on the bad that “had happened to me”. Later when I focused on strengthening my faith and trusting in Him, I was able to look back and see all the good that was happening around me during that dark time. The light was there whether I could focus on it or not. God was showing me that he was always constant during my time of trial. It was me who was not constant in my faith in Him that caused the struggle. Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Most of us are in the midst of a trial in our life right now. We are afraid. We are struggling to see that God is good amidst the suffering. But I challenge you to try to look at your situation without the strong sting of the emotion and as yourself where this is taking you. Is it trying to pull you closer to Him? Is he trying to steer your path in a different direction, perhaps because the one you were on wasn't the right one for you? Is He trying to show you that He is the light in the darkness? Try to look at past trials in your life that you have overcome. What would your life be like today had you never experienced that. Did it cause you to grow in faith? Did it cause you to eliminate toxic people from your life? Did it place you on a different career path where maybe you could do more kingdom work than where you were before? At the end of the road, we must all fight the fight of this world. When we reach the end, can we say as Paul did in his second letter to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.^4:7”