A Good Life

A year ago today I was speaking truth to my heart through tears, hopelessness, and despair.

I desperately wanted life to end, but knew I couldn’t take mine. So I cried out to God, asking why life was so insanely hard. My birthday was full of reminders of broken relationships, broken dreams, and a broken body.

So many times I have questioned the purpose of the last four years of chronic illness and hard circumstances. I've angrily asked God why He took my dreams from me--good dreams of ministry and service to Him. I've wrestled to find purpose in deep pain and loss. I've doubted that my life had any value.

In the pain and heartache last year, I wrote this:

"God isn’t looking for my success. He wants my faithfulness. Right now, in this season, life looks significantly different from what I expected. But that doesn’t mean that my life is a waste. And neither is yours."

Life still isn't what I hoped. My life has been redirected and redefined.

And that's ok.

Everyone reaches a point where dreams die or sorrows swallow. A broken, sin-cursed world causes everything to be laced with pain. The only way to survive those seasons of unbelievable grief or loss is through Christ holding you.

I still have daily reminders that I am limited. Pain and fatigue quickly grab hold and threaten to take over my day. Fear can cause me to wonder if my goals are stupid and unrealistic and will set me back again. Countless questions run through my mind as I slowly heal and consider what next. What will my life will be like for the next month, 6 months, or year? I don't know, but I don't have to know it all.

Despite questions, unknowns, and wrestlings, I have much more hope than I did a year ago! God has carried me through my deepest difficulties I've yet known, when I didn't think I could make it. I have seen progress in my health that I didn't think was possible. I have goals I'm working towards and things I can do now that were unimaginable a couple years ago.

Your hopes for life may be crushed, but God believes that your life has purpose and can be pleasing to Him. Right here and now. Your life may have changed, but He has not. There is a source of hope and even joy that can be found amidst great heartache.

So keep pressing forward. Keep creating goals. Keep looking for ways to bless others. Keep looking up. A good life is not defined by accomplishments, success, or the approval of others, but by faithfulness and dependence on God. 

That is an attainable goal today.

Book Review: The Promise is His Presence

I had the privilege of being part of a book launch for the brand-new book, The Promise is His Presence: Why God is Always Enough, by Glenna Marshall.

Glenna speaks out of much suffering, including two things that resonated deeply with me: chronic illness and church pain. She talks about the many unmet longings we wrestle with in suffering and how it’s easy to believe that if God would grant our heart’s desires (especially good desires!), we would be fulfilled.

And yet through her season of lack, Glenna shares how God’s withholding of good things taught her to cling more closely to Him. She gently, but powerfully, comforts with the promise of God's presence being more than enough. No matter the pain or heartache we face.

Weaving the narrative of Scripture throughout her book, Glenna encourages readers by showing how God’s presence sustains and brings hope in the midst of difficult circumstances. She also shares honest glimpses of how God brought her personally to a place of resting in this truth of God being enough.

I love the way she expresses it in chapter one:

“Whatever plagues your heart with longing cannot be answered satisfactorily outside God’s faithful presence. He might give you every tangible desire you could ever dream up, but if your heart is not satisfied in Him, you will never stop yearning for more.”

Anyone who has suffered will tell you that God met them in deeper ways than they ever encountered in seasons of blessings and fulfillment. They realize the emptiness of temporary things. The truth of God's nearness sustains and strengthens through the darkest of days. His presence is the only place of rest and security.

No matter where you find yourself today, you will find encouragement and hope in this book. Take a moment to order!