God Has Good Plans for You (Wait and See)!
God's ways are often vastly different from ours - counterintuitive even - and can be painful and confusing for a season. Still, His plans for us, which we'll usually see later when looking back, are always better than our own.
I don't know if you've ever felt crushed - if you've had an experience so devastating you had no idea how to pick up the pieces and move on…
If you have, did you struggle to make sense of it all while in the midst of it? To hold on to hope, believing that things would eventually get better? Did it seem unfair? As if God had walked out of your life and didn't care that you were hurting?
Crushed is how I felt when I lost the online marketing business I'd been pouring my heart and soul into for years (not to mention my time and money). It was 2013, and the direct sales company I was working with suddenly collapsed. A top producer with the company, I lost most of my customers and clients practically overnight and, with that, almost all of my income sources.
Crushed is how I felt when, shortly thereafter, my marriage of sixteen years ended in divorce. I fell into a deep depression and no longer had a sense of purpose or direction. I was so shaken up that for months, I could barely think straight.
Crushed is how I felt when, just a few years ago, Don and I were rehabilitating Christopher at home after he’d suffered a debilitating swallowing disorder. We fought for his health - at times, his very life - every waking hour of the day for nearly a year. We had no way of knowing whether our sweet boy would ever be able to eat, drink, or speak normally again. He wasn't making progress, and there were days when we wondered if we would be forced to put him on a feeding tube indefinitely.
In each of these trials, God knew there would one day be an end to the trouble. He, of course, always saw the bigger picture. And now I see it, too: I see that my challenges weren't stumbling blocks but stepping stones.
God allowed, designed even, those hard experiences for my good and the good of others. And for His glory.
If my business hadn't flopped, I wouldn't have the joy of teaching women in the things of God today. It wasn't until the loss of my business that I became fully convinced that God was calling me to leave the marketing world. It was only then that I transitioned to Christian speaking and writing, and I'm now privileged to minister to women from all walks of life.
If my first marriage hadn't ended, I wouldn't have met Don in 2019 and become his bride the following year. Because Don’s a package deal, I now get to be both the wife to a wonderful man and a bonus mom!
If Christopher hadn't gotten deathly ill, I may never have realized what an incredible human he is and how much he means to me. I would likely have continued on the same path I was on at the time, uninvolved in his life. Both he and I would have missed out big time. Today, however, Christopher and I are super-attached, and this closeness is a direct result of my nurturing him back to health for all those months alongside my husband.
Each of the experiences was agonizing while it was going on, but they all served a purpose in God's master plan for my life. God knew precisely how to draw beautiful things out of the losses. And He knew it all along - during the many days and weeks and months when I didn't see it.
Oh yes, the things that seem to crush us can often become a launch pad for our most fruitful callings. When we dare to fully put our trust in the Lord, we'll discover He knows precisely what He's doing.
God has good things in store for you, too, friend. Hang in there. Remember, when it looks like your life is being turned upside down, it may be that it's being turned right-side up.
PS: Here is my personal story as published recently in Women’s Journal: When Life’s Detours Lead You to Your Purpose.
L.B.
Have you experienced God coming through for you before? It can help us to reflect on His faithfulness in the past whenever we struggle with something in the present. In the comments section below, please share your thoughts on this or any questions you may have.
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Lena belongs to a prison ministry that regularly travels to maximum-security jails in Mexico to share with the inmates how they can receive forgiveness for their sins through faith in Jesus Christ. As you'll see, God's light is strong enough to penetrate the darkest places. Click here for the story.