Have you ever had your life totally turned upside down? I have. What did you do? Did you wallow in your situation complain or did you accept it and continue? I must be honest for some time I wallowed in it and then finally accepted it. If you are like me what caused the turn around? If you have not accepted it and moved on, I hope my experience might help you. Let me tell you about what God taught me about how I could fully move on.
Thirteen and a half years ago my wife chose to end her own life. I was devastated. I was so hurt I struggled with a meaning and purpose of my life. I turned to God for answers. There seemed to be no response. But I remained faithful and continued to look for answers.
As I sought my answers I made baby steps as I found Scripture passages that helped me. But I was not fully satisfied, nor did I fully believe that I was going to be okay. As I looked in the Scriptures I found Psalms 23 to be of great comfort but it still did not satisfy. There was “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 (ESV) was a truth that I was well aware of but it gave me no comfort because I could not understand the death of my wife could somehow become good. I failed to comprehend or believe what The Bible said. I chose to trust my feelings instead.
Finally after nearly seven and a half years I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit where He showed me where I had gone wrong and failed to believe and understand the principle of how God works when my life had been turned upside down. He impressed upon me that I did not believe a key passage in James. He pointed me to James 1:2-4, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (ESV) He impressed upon me the purpose of a trial is to make me perfect complete and lacking in nothing. The light bulb went on in my head and I suddenly realized that God was working in my life to complete me. He was working to make me better and I needed to embrace the trial as being good because the end would justify the means. Since that time, I have embraced my life being turned upside down in a new way looking for what God was trying to do in my life to make me better and trusting that He would complete the work He had started in me. Philippians 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (ESV)
I pray you will find hope in your life being turned upside down. That you too will look at this trial as God working to make you perfect, complete, and lacking in nothing. It is God’s way of building a relationship with Him through Jesus we all have the opportunity to put our pain and struggles behind us a look with hope for the day He returns. He is there to forgive and forget because He is the one who cares for you no matter the situation and is the only way to truly start anew in this there is true hope. Understanding that Jesus is the only source of true hope. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross satisfied the penalty for my sins and yours as well. It satisfied all my sins from the past, in the present and in the future. My penalty and yours was satisfied on the cross by the death of Jesus, God’s greatest act of love and wrath, who became sin for me and you. It was also God’s greatest act of faithfulness because “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV) Because wisdom shows us, we need to believe in Jesus. I hope that you join me in helping others to choose Jesus.
If you have not read my previous blogs, you can find them here. You can watch a book trailer about my book. You can find my book, Hope Amid Hopelessness: Our Abba Father Provides a Way Through Mental Illness here. eBook or Audiobook versions can be found at Westbow Press or Christianbook.com at Amazon or Google.
I mentioned that I was going through a difficult time right now. If you are interested in what I am going through, you can read about it here.
