It was pitch black that night I got the phone call while driving on the highway.
“Your mom left me.”
What? Mom wouldn’t leave. Not unless it was serious? What's going on?
“She’s planning on getting a divorce. She moved out all her stuff.”
That night, when my parents officially split up, was the beginning of a very long journey. I soon learned that it was going to be an unexpected and painful experience. But it was an experience where I started to learn that God was in the middle of everything.
Have you ever had something like that happen to you? One minute everything is normal and the next, the bottom drops out from under you. Some things truly take us by surprise and others we see coming. But that still doesn’t stop the feeling of fall out.
In those moments, we want cling to something steady. But what happens when the steady is broken? What happens when your family core is disrupted? When you lost your only source of income? When the eviction notice happens? What do you do when your world is flipped on its head?
I think we have all experienced something like that within the last few years, one way or another.
Trials have a way of showing us two things:
what is steady.
who is there.
So many moments have happened in my life that have proven one thing to me. God is always there and that never changes.
The Bible says that God created the world. He was there from the very beginning. But He also stayed.
When I make something, I can think it’s really awesome and amazing but then a new thing will come along and I’ll find the project buried in a basement ten years later. Not so with God. He saw the very creation of the world and stayed with it. He not only stayed but He cared about it. That is so hard for a lot of people to hear and accept.
There are so many layers as to why hearing that God cares is hard. After all, if God really cared for me then why would He allow bad things to happen? Why would I have been hurt? Why are there so many wrong things in the world? This is a question that many have wrestled with...
Ultimately it comes down to choice.
The choices you and I make that we think don't affect other people. The choices other people make that affect us.
"But if God is all powerful then why doesn't He just stop us?"
One answer: Love.
Choice, a truly fair choice, is what allows us to experience love. Friend regardless of what Hollywood tells you or your great Aunt Sue, love is not an emotion. Love is a choice. Again and again and again.
Love is true. The love that God showed us is true because He really is in the middle of our pain whether we believe it or not. It can be hard to believe but just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s true. Just because it doesn’t feel true doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Truly, when your world gets shifted upside down, it’s actually an amazing gift to put everything back in the proper place.
That night my world crashed before me. It took a long time to pick up the pieces. But in the devastation, God was showing me that He was real. He cared about what I was going through. In the middle of adult transition, family dysfunction and broken finances, He was the only thing that kept me holding on. He never changed. He never left me. He never stopped being who He said He was. Sometimes I didn’t see it, but just because the sky is cloudy doesn’t mean the sun isn’t shining.
Right now you might be wondering where God is. That's human nature. Your world might be spinning out of control faster than you can catch your breath.
What I want you to know is that God is for you. He is with you. He sees you. He won't leave you and He will restore.
You just have to let Him.
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