It’s easy to serve God when things are going well. When your children are healthy, your finances are solid, your relationships are thriving, your health is good, your mind is clear, and your body feels strong. It’s easy to have a positive attitude and see the world through rose-colored glasses.
And sometimes, when life feels easy for us, it can be easy to misunderstand people whose lives don’t feel easy at all.

But then God gives us an opportunity to struggle. (I call it an opportunity, but I don’t always feel that way when I’m in the middle of it.)

But perhaps it is in those difficult seasons that God gently brings us down beneath our egos, beneath our assumptions, and beneath the false sense of control we carry.
Pain has a way of doing that.

Whether it’s physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual, pain reminds us just how fragile we really are. It can change the way we see other people. It can give us compassion for struggles we once didn’t understand. And it can bring us back to God in a way that comfort sometimes doesn’t.

Pain forces us to surrender the control we thought we had.

We are such fragile humans. When everything is going right, it’s easy to worship God with joy and gratitude. But what comes out of us when everything isn’t going right? That’s where I find myself right now.

I’ve been dealing with significant back pain, and today my mood feels low. I’m tired. I’m frustrated. And if I’m honest, I want to know when this will end.

But in it, I’m choosing to look for Jesus.
I’m choosing to surrender the control I thought I had, because the truth is—I don’t have much control at all.

I don’t know exactly how long this will last. I don’t know exactly when I’ll heal or what that healing will look like. I don’t know when I’ll be able to return to work or what my days will look like in the meantime.

But Jesus knows.❤️❤️

So I’m asking Him to help me find joy even in the middle of pain. To give me endurance while I’m in the trial. To help me cling to hope for healing while also surrendering my expectations of what that healing has to look like.

Maybe that’s part of what God is teaching me here: not just how to endure pain, but how to trust Him when I can’t control the outcome.

I guess I’m sharing this on my platform bc I want to come out of this not only healed in my body, but softer in my heart. More compassionate toward people whose struggles I cannot see. More aware of how fragile we all are.

And if someone else is currently struggling to remind them, as well as myself, that suffering strips away the illusion of control and gives us the opportunity to experience God , as well as other people’s struggles with a deeper kind of humility and compassion.

Lord help us to see the blessing of struggle and turn our hearts to you. Amen.