Trusting God With the Hard Seasons of Life

When Dan and I moved from Minnesota to Michigan over 2 years ago, there was much anticipation within our hearts. Minnesota was an incredible place of healing for us – in every aspect of life. We both knew though, that we eventually wanted Mazy to grow up by her cousins and grandparents, and us, likewise. What we walked away with from Minnesota was a “family” that will always welcome us back. Our Minnesota family accepted us broken, battered, and crawling back into ministry. We left there healed, loved, and confident that ministry was what we were just meant to do. Little did we know though, our step back into Michigan would begin a journey we never saw coming.

We have had some hard seasons in life. Has it always been easy to trust God with those hard seasons? Absolutely not; especially when my faith wasn’t as deeply rooted. At times it can feel like those hard seasons are becoming like the Florida Keys, where there isn’t a great variance in temperature or season. It might get a little cooler or a warmer, but you can pretty much depend on the fact that it’ll be warm. When it comes to the hard seasons, I think I’ll choose my western Michigan experience – you know the seasons will come and go.

Trusting God with the hard seasons of life can honestly feel wearisome. Not in the sense that he isn’t trustworthy or dependable, but making that daily choice to trust him during the turmoil, the storms, of life, can be difficult.

His mercies are new

Have you had days when you wonder if it’s ever going to end or if the promise in the Bible that says “his mercies never end and are new every morning” is actually true? I’ll be honest with you, when I read that verse, I feel like there is a precise beginning and end to the writer’s day – new every morning. Um, not going to lie, sometimes I don’t know if I have a “new” day when my child is up sick or can’t sleep and morning seems like an endless continuing from the day before. It doesn’t feel new. But we can’t forget the last part of these verses from Lamentations 3:22-23 – the last sentence is this: great is your faithfulness. Hashtag truth, my friends. When my trust in God has waivered, which it has more times than I care to admit, all I have to do is simply look back at his faithfulness in my life, and I will that his mercies are new. Every morning. Whether that morning is a continuation from the day before with little zzzz’s in between. Great has been his faithfulness.

Just do the next thing

When my body was attempting to recover from 2 consecutive open heart surgeries, there were moments where I wasn’t sure I was going to live due to the pain. Though I quickly learned that I don’t think you can die from pain, but from what is causing it. I thought I was going to have to beg to differ because the pain was so intense that no morphine or pain med concoction could touch. How was I supposed to trust God that he would provide when I wasn’t sure I would make it through the next minute as I bit my pillow, trying to mask the pain? It was about having the mindset of “just doing the next thing.” I didn’t think I could do it. And anytime I don’t think I can do something, I have to look no further than the cross. Jesus walked the road of shame, carrying his own cross that he would soon die on, knowing fully what was going to happen, yet he chose to take one step forward. And then the next. Just doing the next thing, even when he questioned God. It’s not that he didn’t trust his heavenly Father, but I’m sure his weariness of heart, mind, and strength had to be afflicting him. Yet he chose to just do the next thing.

There are days when the hours are just hard. I am fatigued to a new level. My energy level feels poor. And I shame myself for not being able to be the mom that I want to be to our daughter. But I have found that in those moments, in those times of complete depletion, I just have to do the next thing. The next minute. The next hour. Even if it means closing my eyes! Even if it means just sitting on the couch to regroup my energy and maybe take that time to read a story to my daughter. And if that sounds too exhausting, ask her to tell me a story about the pictures. I’m just doing the next thing. And the next. And God’s faithfulness, once again, will prove to be sufficient as I trust God with the hard seasons in life.

Trusting also means resting

Like I said, no shame here in having to close my eyes to muster up the energy to keep going some days! I think so often we find our success in what we have accomplished. Raising my hand high, right here! I find my heart failure to be extremely limiting at times and as something that is “in the way” of what I should really be doing in life. That God can’t use me as fully as he would like because I’m physically weak. God sure has done a number on my spiritual heart though. Through all of the times of “rest” I’ve had to have and have been forced to have, my trust in my Father has only increased. Do you find it ironic, that when we have those hard seasons in life, that one of the first things that gets called up to bat is our trust in God? Will we really trust him with “this” too?

I have an on-going laundry list of things I would like to accomplish in my lifetime. It’s getting kinda long folks, and I think guy, just stop adding and start doing! But one thing I have to remember is that just because I may not be able to accomplish some of the things I would like to, due to my physical health, God can still working in my heart.

Psalm 73:26 says, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Y’all, it’s biblical. My heart may fail (def is already), but God sure has been my strength and my portion. Forever. He is all I need and when I can trust him with my future, even when I feel I can’t “accomplish” everything I want to do, I can know that I can accomplish what he has set out for me to do, because he is my portion and my strength.

Do you find it difficult to trust God during the hard seasons of life? Or have you had so many that each time, it gets easier and easier? God is faithful. God is enough. And God is our strength. Keep hanging onto that hope – not hope in our circumstances (those may fail us), but hope in our heavenly Father.