I wish I knew why bad things have to happen. Why does it feel like we get to a certain point and fall. Why are we so happy one second, and the next we feel like we’re going up, like we have nowhere to go but down and down.
I wish I knew how to deal with the brokenness, release the pain and find some kind of healing. How do you become someone who lets burdens fall off your back and walk away hoping that no matter what happens, you will be okay.
But being that kind of woman is hard. Being that kind of person is hard. Life it’s difficult. And no matter what beauty we try to cultivate, the joy we try to bring, the peace we allow to enter our lives and the lives of others, this world will bring us storms and pain.
I wish it didn’t happen like that. I wish we could be good and have good things come our way. I wish we could love and laugh and never face loneliness, or sorrow, or death, or closed doors. But the steps we take are part of this incomplete journey. We are people wandering in this sinful world, seeking and finding our way. We are not meant to live lives that don’t change, that don’t break, that don’t grow, that don’t rebuild.
We have to deal with painful things—to shape us, to teach us, to help us appreciate what we have do to be, to bring us closer to ourselves, to the people around us, to God. And knowing that we are never alone.
Sometimes God uses difficult times to bring us back to Him. Perhaps we have lost sight of who we are. Perhaps we have been wandering around with selfish and empty hearts. Maybe we have been trying to control everything that happens with our own hands, instead of depending on Him, instead of allowing ourselves to be led. Perhaps there is no rhyme or reason, but our Father calls us out of our pain, begging us to connect with Him.
Sometimes God uses difficult times to shape our path. Maybe the road we were on was bad. Maybe we were too dependent on someone who would end up leaving, or chasing love in the wrong places. Perhaps we were pretending to be the center of the universe, living without real purpose or hope, but all this was hidden by temporary things.
Sometimes God uses difficult times to teach us. That we don’t have to be here alone. That we never carry burdens without help. That we are of infinite value, even when we don’t believe or see this value.
We tend to have this view of life that we will achieve perfection if we just try harder, love harder, give more. But no matter what we do, or say, or how enthusiastically we share with others, bad things are inevitable. And that doesn’t mean being a good person isn’t worth it, but it reminds us that escaping pain is impossible—but we still have hope—in our Father’s love.
Pain the will it happened, but feeling alone and weak and empty is not necessary. Because Jesus bore our pain; all we have to do is accept this love and walk in His ways.
Sometimes we will have moments when everything goes wrong, when nothing is right, when we go around in circles, dizzy and confused. We will want to stop. We will want to run. We will want to chase anything that makes us feel light, even for a moment. We will set our hearts on temporary things, hoping to be filled.
But the truth of God’s love is that He desires to fill us. He wants to give us peace where there is chaos, joy where there is weariness, healing where there is damage. He wants to help us start again, find our footing, keep moving forward after things go wrong.
He longs to bring us back to Him, to trust us again.
Sometimes God uses difficult times to show His unconditional love. The promise that even when the world fails, when we fall, when things change or break or are destroyed, He is there. And never leave.
Sometimes God uses difficult times to show us who we are the will it’s okay. It just takes time, trust, and faith.
Everything passes, but his love remains.
