Trusting the Lord does not always come easy. When a situation we are going through has no clarity for us, when we are confused about our circumstances and when we don’t understand why God has allowed things to happen in our lives, it becomes hard to trust Him in those seasons.
Perhaps some of us have the wisdom to understand what is going on while in the midst of a storm, but oftentimes we lack the greater picture of what is occurring. In those moments and seasons we have to choose to trust the Lord as we navigate the valley.
I have experienced enough of the faithfulness of God in my life where a sure pattern has been established in our relationship. God often gives me understanding and peace of a season I have just walked through or He releases that to me in time. This does not mean all my questions are answered, but for the most part my eyes are shown where the hand of the Lord had been the entire trial.
For myself personally, the last three years have blurred together under an umbrella of intense warfare and trials. I can actually tell you the day this season started for me. There was most assuredly a moment where I knew that the enemy was after me. I only knew those things because I felt it within me and I responded with holding more tightly to the Lord. Three years is a long time to endure an entire valley season, but that season has not been without God’s faithfulness and deep love for myself and my family.
While 2021 was coming to an end, God began to not only show me insight with what I just walked through for three long years, but also a long sought after word that this was the close of that intense season. And He has only confirmed it more since then.
I can only liken this dark season to Joseph in Genesis, who remained in prison two extra years because the chief cupbearer forgot to mention him before the Pharaoh. That betrayal, and no doubt the feelings of isolation and being forgotten by the Lord, taunted his heart. Yet, God had a perfect plan and a perfect time to release His child into promise and purpose.
As God continues to show me what He was doing in me and with our relationship, I am humbled how a lot of what He did was protect and guard me in this season. I did not always feel protected, but He had His hand on me and His angels surrounding me most in those times.
I wanted the Lord to answer my pleas for help and release me in my way, or what I saw as the only way, but He had a better plan and knew what I needed most. I wanted to be delivered out of tough situations. He only sustained me within them and gave me His grace to endure.
I wanted others around me to change and I begged God to change them. And instead the Lord brought change in me. He allowed parts of me that were holding me back from being fully who I am in Him to die, and I felt the pain and grief as His work was accomplishing something beautiful.
God was healing deep wounds in my soul. Wounds I had no idea were there or that were even impacting me on the level that they were. And as each wound healed I was able to look back in my own life’s timeline at those moments where I had allowed such wounding to be the lenses I saw them through.
Pieces of a complex puzzle were coming together and things began to make sense and become clear. I saw my own negative behaviors as a response to those wounds and I was amazed how healing resolved a lot of them.
The past three years, as horrible as they felt and were at times, will forever be marked in my heart and mind as the years that God dared to heal me and rescue me from myself. And instead of answering my desperate plea to be either removed out of a difficult situation or for Him to intervene the way I wanted Him to, God in His deep love for me desired my wholeness and His purpose in me rather than to respond as I asked.
And because of that I am forever grateful to Him.