Life is filled with the unexpected. Here are a couple of certainties.

If you love your current situation, embrace it, enjoy it, it will change.

Do you feel like everything bad is happening to you all at once? Sometimes the storms of life come. Sometimes we have seasons like that. Sometimes they last for a week. Sometimes, months. Sometimes, a year. Sometimes, ten + years.  If you hate your current situation, hold on, do not give up, it will change.

A very wise friend of mine once told me, “You can do anything temporarily.”

Through many seasons, her saying has encouraged me to hold on just a little bit longer, to dig just a little bit deeper, to fight just a little bit harder. Sometimes just a little bit more is all that God requires of us—just a little bit more hope, just a little bit more faith. God wants me to trust Him with no matter what, He is in control and He loves me so much more than I can ever imagine.

It is not by accident that our lives are filled with change. God spells this out in Ecclesiastes 3. 

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,

A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

A time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,

A time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,

A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Changing seasons are an opportunity to experience God’s sweetest providence, His all-sufficient grace and His unwavering guidance. Accepting, discovering and appreciating God’s perfect timing becomes a pathway to peace throughout our lives. If we doubt or resent His timing, we can get discouraged, go our own way and miss the blessings He is so beautifully unfolding. When we come to realize that God is leading us to a new plan, it is time to start acting like it—time to walk by faith, not by sight.

Through every season of change, through good times and bad, through the storms of our lives, God is our Peace, our Light, our Only Constant, our One True North Star. In His light, we can see our way now through the storm, and we can see what He has done for us in the dark seasons before. In seeking His light, our faith can grow like a morning glory on a rock wall reaching for the morning sun coming up on the other side.

A path that seemed to be all wrong, may turn out to be so right a little further along as we watch “all things work together for good to them that love God”. (Romans 8:28)

Often our faith grows the most when we have no other choice but to rely on Him. When we find He is all we have, we find that He is all we will ever need.

Like you, I have been to the end of my rope, I have hit rock bottom, and I have been overwhelmed by the size of the storm. During these times, God has urged me not to give up, not to give in.

He has brought me through some impossible seasons—an eating disorder, a rocky first marriage and divorce; years of infertility; an emotional collapse, my mom’s cancer battle and her death, embezzlement by two different employees, my own personal cancer battles with melanoma  and breast cancer, mastectomies and numerous surgeries, and my dad’s 27-year struggle with Parkinson’s Disease, then his death last year. Often I have found myself submerged in an impossible situation one day but miraculously lifted out of it by God’s grace, the next.

Through trials, He has shown me that when I reach the end of my rope, it is His garment that I can grab hold of. When I have hit rock bottom, there has been only one direction to go. And, most importantly, I have learned that the battles and storms were not mine to begin with, but His. He has been faithful in my life, time after time after time. Some things that have seemed impossible at the time are now realities in my life that I can testify of—His amazing grace.

These lessons have been forged into my life through the fire. You would think they would be forged on my memory too and I could never forget them. Unbelievably, sometimes I still do forget, and I have to be reminded. Even if I forget that God is in complete control, God never forgets me. I am so thankful that He holds me through every season of my life, through the good times and the bad—the temporary.

Dear Lord: No matter what storms come or what changes happen in our lives, you never change. No matter our circumstances, we don’t have to lose hope. Help us to remember not to trust in our lives, but to trust in You. You are the One who holds our lives, and ALL things are in your hands. Amen

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. Ephesians 3:9-11

Are you facing a scary storm in your life? Be still and know that He is God. He has got this!

Are you in a season that you think will never end? Sometimes we have those “Ecclesiastical” years. Hold on just a little bit longer. A little bit of faith can move a mountain.

“All of my life, in every season, you are still God. I have a reason to sing. I have a reason to worship.” —Hillsong

Please share your thoughts, comments and experiences. Thank you for reading and sharing my blogpost today. May God bless you and your family as He carries you safely through every storm and through every season of your lives.

Related blogposts you might like to read: https://sharonhawkins.net/2017/06/20/find-peace-storm/ https://sharonhawkins.net/2017/05/23/when-hope-is-all-you-have/