When I was a child, if I learned of a tragedy faced by a family in our local church, that tragedy became part of the identity by which I knew them: The family whose home was destroyed by the natural disaster. The family who had a tragic car accident. The family whose child walked away from God. The family with cancer. With age and my own life experience, I have grown to understand that families with tragedy are the rule, not the exception. Every one of us either has or will someday face intense loss and grief.
And though this is true, it is also undeniable that our brief time here is full of innumerable blessings from God. We may have days, months, and years that are brimming with comfort and ease, lacking difficulties beyond minor conflicts or pressing deadlines at work or other temporary bumps in our path. What riches!
Families who have adopted will quickly tell you that walking in faith to adopt is both. Heaviest heartache, stress, and anxiety, but also deepest hope, redemption, and joy.
Wherever we find ourselves, we must ask ourselves:
Will I praise God and place my trust in Him through this part of my path?
For some of us, it is incredibly easy to praise God when life feels like it’s going smoothly, but we struggle to proclaim His greatness in the depths of grief. For others, we forget to credit the Lord with the many blessings of our daily lives and the valleys are what remind us to look up at our Creator and seek His strength. It’s essential that, regardless of our circumstances, we make a practice of choosing to trust God and give Him all praise and glory.
Please don’t misunderstand me – in no way am I implying that we should come to God and pretend not to be feeling deepest sorrows and grief while we walk – or even crawl – through the valleys of this life. Trusting and praising Him does not necessitate flat solemnity or false cheerfulness. Our prayers need not have caveats and sidenotes that downplay our emotions and it would be foolish for us to pretend that He is not already aware of our pain anyway. Nor are we lacking faith if we cannot talk about “silver linings.” The God who named His chosen people Israel, which means “one who struggles with God”, wants us to come to Him with all the emotions He created for us to experience. From our lowest grief to our loudest joy, our hottest anger to our darkest fear, He knows that His faithfulness withstands them all and He wants us to know that, too.
The goal is to let trust have the final word. It is the same refrain echoed in the psalms of lament and in beloved hymns like It Is Well With My Soul, Abide With Me, Blessed Be Your Name, and Goodness of God: whatever comes, the Lord is still worthy of our praise.
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. Habakkuk 3:17-19
May God give us each the feet we need to walk faithfully along whatever rocky, tumultuous path is laid before us.
