Help in hard times

Let me recap a major part of my story. Let me recap it going backwards.

On one evening in July of 2012, I randomly asked someone why they loved Christmas so much if Jesus meant nothing to them. The words they spoke cracked open my heart. That crack allowed the Holy Spirit in and forever change me. I was saved. If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

Why did I ask this question? The only answer I can provide to that is that the moments leading up to this provoked this question within me. Shortly before that evening, this person I asked this question to had returned as a completely different person from the man I knew. He claimed to no longer believe in God or Jesus. Shortly before that, he went on a bachelor party trip. Shortly before that, I was hospitalized after being chronically sick for over 2 years. Shortly before that was when him and I moved to Texas. Shortly before that, neither of us had jobs in Chicago, I had been laid off due to downsizing. And that's where my "story" really begins.

I say all this because when "bad" things happen in our lives we wonder why. We wonder what we did to cause them. We wonder why we got the short stick and others didn't. We tend to focus on the bad and overlook the good. We tend to see it as going downhill with no end in sight.

I thought losing my job was the end of the world. I thought with losing my health it couldn't get any worse. Losing my husband was unimaginable.

But pause for a moment. Let me take you back to that evening in July of 2012. I was saved. I was saved! I have Jesus in my life now! I know Him like I didn't before!

In your own life, are you going through some very difficult times? Do you think there is no end in sight? Do you think you no longer serve a purpose because you lost your job or got sick? Have other people abandoned you? Do you maybe even think God has abandoned you?

That one simple question I asked that night changed my life forever. The only reason I asked that question was because of the series of events that happened before it. Those moments I saw as bad were the exact moments and events needing to happen to lead to that question... for me to feel enough pain for my heart to crack open and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

What you are going through could be the exact set of events needed to bring you right to where God wants you to be. It could be leading up to something that makes it all worth it. And if you allow it to, those hard times could be preparing you, allowing you to grow and become more of what God intends for you. And you can use what you have been through to minister to others who are now going through it.

So as you encounter something difficult in life, know that there is always more to it than we can see. God has a plan. Will you trust in that plan? Will you trust Him? Will you hand over all the broken pieces so He can pick them up and build them back up for you?