What is THIS?
Have you ever said that? “What is THIS?” You feel blinded by the situation as though a veil covers your eyes and everything you once saw clearly is dimmed in a strange fog that is your new reality.
Something happened that completely took you by surprise. Something that you could’ve NEVER prepared for ahead of time. Something you think is impossible to live through or even figure out how to navigate.
I bet you can say yes to that. Probably more than once you’ve felt this way as I have. Maybe so many times you’ve said it that you’ve lost count. If you are like me, your first thought is not, “What can I learn from this? How can I grow closer to Christ through this?”
Currently I am about halfway through the book It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way by Lysa TerKeurst president of Proverbs 31 Ministries. She fully gets this feeling of disbelief and “what now”. If you follow Lysa, you know some of her story. In her book, she shares this journey with us.
The title of her book reveals the overall theme as does the comment in her first chapter: “I still struggle with the distance between what I thought would be and what is.” But Lysa continually draws us back to a “moving forward” challenge, not allowing Satan to keep us in the place of hopelessness. She asks whether maybe through bringing us back to “dust” (from which man was created and will return to one day) is the way God will make us into something totally new.
She addresses those times God is silent in the midst of the struggle. And yet how we can, even then, look toward the “new” He will eventually bring. And she admits, some things won’t be fully restored this side of heaven, but even then we can walk through them in obedience and hope.
One of the positive aspects of our own difficult journeys Lysa teaches is one I’ve written on numerous times: our pain can draw us to compassion for others as we share our stories and encourage them as they struggle in their own situations that appear hopeless.
One of my favorite pictures she weaves through at least the first half of this book is how to live “between the gardens”…the original garden where sin entered the world and the one that will be fully restored when Jesus comes back.
Often I scan read because I am ALWAYS reading several books at a time, but this is NOT one I am scanning! I won’t give anymore away about Lysa’s book but I hope I have whetted your appetite enough to pick up your own copy if you haven’t already done so! I pray as you read you will draw close to Christ, especially if you feel you are on the edge of a cliff where you think your only options are to sit and fear or give up and jump.
Photo by Connor McSheffrey on Unsplash
I challenge you to remember, you are living between two gardens and this is right where God will meet you, teach you, and then use your journey to minister to others.
Banner photo by Vadim Bogulov on Unsplash
