From The Mud Puddle

1 Peter 4: 12-13 Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad--because these trials will make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and afterward you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his glory when it is displayed to all the world.

A few weeks ago, I heard this verse somewhere as some sort of cross reference verse most likely from my pastor as he taught on Jonah. (those details are foggy, since it seems that God wanted to show me more here as this passage applied to some other thoughts)

After many of our trials of different kinds, when the babies died, after my surgery 2 years ago, after my husband lost his job, and many other trials we've endured, as the dust has started to clear-we often celebrate under a cloud of wondering. We wonder when the "other shoe" is going to fall. We find ourselves not letting us be happy and in praise with abandon. We do so on a limited basis, because we know that as soon as we get settled in the "new normal" that something else terrible will happen to devastate it all. We stop trusting life, we stop trusting anyone and everything. We just start looking over our shoulders for that next bad event, and we refuse to live at the fullest . We are robbed of our life lived abundantly as we refuse ourselves the joy of the calm and peace.

Why do we become surprised when bad things happen to us? God's word tells us to expect it-and well not to be surprised by these things, these trials of different kinds we endure.

Here after my husband lost his job, depression was a hard thing to deal with through it all. We kept wondering why, and what God was doing as He taught us new lessons in provision and trust. Even after my husband got the job he is at now...even as we knew it was not ideal, we were thankful, but we didn't trust it. We didn't trust the peace that had arrived, for wasn't this just a false peace? It was the last time he got what was his "dream job" ...exactly what he wanted ....that ended up being one big lie. This one was so much less than "our" ideal-but we were ready for it, and it IS God's provision and plan for us right now. We are fine with all this now-but in the whole situation, as we sit here and the dust is clearing, God had something new to show me in living freely ...knowing new troubles will come....but taking time to enjoy the now-the rest we are in between troubles, as He works His will out in our lives. It's not His plan for us to worry about those future troubles now, but to know that it is Him that provides for us now, and will again and again when those dark days come along again. We don't even know why God is taking us on this different road from the one we thought He had set us on in the first place, why the detour-but we trust He knows why, and that what we are living in at this moment is far better than what life would have been like any other way.

Somewhere in all of this, I am learning that I do not want to be robbed of my life abundantly found in Christ because Im waiting for that next "shoe" to fall. I want to live in the joy and praise that is the Lords, KNOWING, EXPECTING that the other shoe will indeed fall. I know it's going to happen, it's not IF, it's WHEN. When it happens, may we be found faithful in praise, and prayer....relying on the trust that we have in the Lord, steadied by His hands under us. Men and circumstances WILL let us down, but God will not.

It is well with my soul

John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world" (Jesus speaking)