That was the lesson I took away from today’s sermon. The sermon I literally had to drag myself to after a 3 month hiatus from church.
It wasn’t one of those sermons where the sky opens up and you feel God’s hands being placed directly upon you. It wasn’t the kind of sermon where I could feel the Holy Spirit moving through me. The message was neither deep nor hard hitting in these ways.
But it was a good first sermon to wade back into. A good first sermon to find my footing back within my church.
And an ironic topic given the fact that I have spent this weekend wholly disappointed to find myself questioning the character of someone I had once fully defended.
But what I walked away with was more. Because this sermon did speak to me. It spoke to where I am in my life right now.
Questioning. Wondering. Seeking.
And hoping for a better understanding daily of why this is the turn my life has taken.
God is in the business of character building.
We were never promised an easy turn on this earth. We were never told that there would be no downs; that we would glide with ease along the ups from here to eternity.
But even knowing that this life is going to be full of turmoil; it still becomes difficult some days to not get caught up in the “why me’s” when things start to go South.
I know I have on more than one occasion felt as though I was being singled out. I have wondered and worried and picked at the unfairness of it all; questioning every step of the way why the challenges in this life had become my cross to bear.
It's frustrating to feel like God is intentionally allowing these things to happen to us. To have to contemplate the possibility that He may not care, since He isn't stepping in. The possibility that He could actually be encouraging these challenges in an effort to build character is even more touchy.
What if I already have enough character? What if I don't want anymore? Would you leave me alone and let me live a happy uneventful life then?
What I forget sometimes is that we all have challenges. That everyone in this life struggles. That even those with two loving and supportive parents and fully functioning lady parts still have challenges to face.
Perhaps even challenges that I would never want to take on.
Because there is always someone who has it worse than you. There is always someone struggling with so much more.
There is always someone out there with more heartbreak than you can possibly imagine.
It’s not about being picked on, or about having to face more than anyone else. It’s not about what I have to take on that you may not have to, or the other way around. My heartbreak now, is no more than anyone else may feel during other challenges in their own lives.
This life is full of challenges.
But God uses those challenges every day to shape us. Mold us. Turn us into better versions of ourselves.
And if we let him, we can actually gain strength from those falls. We can grow, and survive, and thrive amidst the chaos. We can turn these horrible curveballs we’re thrown into things of beauty. Somehow, someway, there is always a path that allows us to turn every single tragedy in this life into something good.
If we’re willing to see past our own pain to do so.
I am the first to admit that I am not always good at this. That sometimes I can become so caught up in my own grief, that I have a hard time listening to God and hearing what he wants me to do with it.
And there is this bratty part of me as well that is left saying “You want me to do what with this?!? I’ll tell you what; if you fix this, if you fix my insides, if you give me that baby I long for, then we’ll talk. Until then though, you’re on your own buddy. I’ll be the one throwing a fit and rebelling every step of the way until you give me what I want.”
Yes. I do that. I say that. I act on that.
Thinking I can make the rules and manipulate the man upstairs into giving me the future that I want.
It isn’t pretty, and I am not proud.
But God is in the business of character building. And I need to remember that. I need to remember that while he isn’t responsible for all the bad that occurs in our lives (some of that is the result of free will, and some of it I even believe to be the work of Satan); he is capable of turning it all into something good.
If we let him.
God is in the business of character building.
And if nothing else; I intend to work harder on being a woman of character.
A woman of God.
A woman of faith.
Even on the days when I'm left wondering: "Why?"
ADSPACE
