Joy in the midst of trials.

 These past couple of years have been sort of insane — we’ve dealt with covid and lockdowns, we’re dealing with runaway inflation, and it just seems life is becoming so much more difficult, right?

In the past couple of years I’ve been focusing on self-development, have become a certified coach, and worked on my own personal growth.  So I do apologize for not posting, and letting this sort of fall by the wayside.

But in the midst of suffering and trials, we can still find joy.  Knowing that God is with us allows us to experience true joy.   It took me a long time to understand that in my own life.  However, knowing that God has your back allows you to go through anything.  That doesn’t mean that you’ll be walking around in some form of delusional happiness, ignoring reality.  Quite the opposite.   I’ll give you an example.

A couple of years ago, my adult daughter was struggling, and living about 5 hours away from me.  I suggested that she and her son just move into my house.  All the pieces were just sort of arranged right there, that it just made sense.  So she did.  Shortly after her moving in, my mother passed.   She was really close to my mother, and as you can imagine, I was rather distraught over that.  After that, over a matter ofr months, there were about 5 other deaths that strongly impacted both my daughter and myself.

I didn’t know all of this was coming, but God did.  He made sure we were together to support, help, and encourage each other.  Sometimes we don’t realize the challenges that we’re going to be facing, but God does – and he arranges the situation to make sure we have what we need to weather those storms.  If you only trust in Him, He will always be faithful.  You might not necessarily be happy during these times, but you will experience joy – the joy of knowing that you are so deeply loved by God, that He will even intervene to make sure your daily life is arranged in such a way that you have what you need.