“Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives, put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.” - Nicole Reed

My husband had just passed away. The mourning period was one of the hardest things I had to go through. I could barely sleep at night. I would spend it mostly watching Frasier which was on Lifetime all night at the time. But then, one night I hear a strange sound. I get up to check on it and turns out we now have a mouse. I’m freaking out. I grab the broom to shoo it away and just want to cry. It’s bad enough I can’t sleep, but now I have to sit here and share my home with a mouse! Just as I think how terrible it is, my kids get pink eye the next day. I had already lost my husband’s health insurance coverage. Just when you think things were already bad, it takes a turn for the worst. It just got real!

Has this happened to you? My guess is yes. I am sure like me, you went through this moment in different seasons of your life. The next season for me was when I went through a painful divorce. It cost me money I didn’t have, co-parenting with someone who kept adding difficulties with multiple disagreements, being late, unexplained accidents and diaper rashes. Making me feel helpless to protect my toddler. Things got real!

Going through these moments, we can react in different ways.

The first time I went through it, it made me question God. Did He see me? Was He punishing me? Did He care? Maybe I deserved it? The second time I went through it I cried for help. It was all I could manage to do. By the third time, I just fought and pushed hard to make it no questions asked though the crying still occurred

Going through these moments taught me that when things get real, everything is out of my control and I am being pushed to lean on a higher power. After each of these seasons, I came out closer to God. They helped me realize that I should not be leaning on my own understanding nor trusting my own power and taking it into my own control as something I was used to doing my whole life. When things get real, it is absolutely beyond your power or anyone else’s.

In these moments when we think we’re being punished or wonder why God allowed us to be here, pause and think that maybe he’s trying to show you something. Maybe He’s trying to teach you how to release and let go and let him take over. Absolute trust. We can hold so tightly to our lives out of fear, but the only one we need to hold on to or fear is God.

Up until my last moment I realized I had been doing it wrong.

Trying to control the overflow. Trying to be the one when something went wrong. The first thing I would do was take full responsibility of figuring it out and that was a mistake. The first thing I should’ve done was given it to God. I’m not saying if you do that, it doesn’t get worse. It just makes it is easier to wade through the mud with a higher, better, faster partner.

It’s hard to save a drowning person when they’re thrashing around trying to save themselves. It’s easier to save them when they’ve given up and let you take over. When they place that trust in you to save them out of that water, it goes more smoothly. And that’s all God is asking from us. He just wants us to trust him in every single situation because then it’s easier for Him to save us. Trust me, I know. I’ve made my situation worse because I didn’t put my trust in Him, but I placed it in myself. Trust in God changes so many things. It changes your perspective and how you translate the situation. Not as a punishment. As you trust in God, you begin to see it as something that He wants to teach us. A lesson to make us stronger or wiser to help someone else.

So if you’re in a season that just got real release and trust him. I believe that God has you and that everything is going to be okay. We cannot be our everything. Nor should we try. He is the one and only, the alpha and the omega. The one who created you and will always be there to save you and guide you and lead you. Put your trust in Him.