Count It All Joy
I remember a season when it felt like I was walking from one trial to the next. Everything felt like a test. It started when I thought God was calling our family to adopt. We found an agency, attended a meeting, and shared the news with family and friends. We had barely begun the process when it felt as if God put it on hold abruptly.
Around the same time, I had a doctor throw the word “cancer” around on a phone call following an ultrasound, which resulted in a couple of weeks of anxiously waiting for biopsy results. I went from daydreaming of adding a child to our mix to wondering how long I would be around for the kids we already had. I was relieved when the results returned benign, yet confused about what God was doing in our lives.
On top of that, after years of public schooling, we felt we were supposed to try homeschooling. We realized it wasn’t working for one child shortly into the first semester. We finished our year at home, but not without many arguments and tears (more from myself than the child). As a result, they returned to public school the following year. It felt like God kept asking me to say “yes,” only to turn around and say “no.”
As if that wasn’t enough, my husband was getting out of the Air Force as our trial year with homeschool ended, and we planned on moving back home to Arizona, where most of our family lived. However, through job interviews, prayers, and tears, we began to feel God was calling us to move to Missouri. Despite feeling as if the last few steps of faith landed us in quicksand, we trailed ahead, driving to the Midwest without a job or a home.
Nothing went like we thought it would. When we arrived in Missouri, we experienced an awful stay in an Airbnb, four weeks of living in a friend’s basement, our daughter split her head open and in a separate freak accident, her tooth was ripped out, root and all. One of our boys broke his wrist (twice), and my husband accidentally hit his foot with an axe while chopping wood on a camping trip. There were moments before he got into surgery that we feared he would lose his leg or worse, his life.
Like I said, it felt like a time of testing. Of course, I couldn’t see it until we were on the other side, but my doubts, confusion and fear drew me closer to God in ways I hadn’t experienced before.
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James1:2-4 ESV).
It feels like a tall order to count it all joy. But joy here isn’t the worldly happiness we tend to think of, but rather spiritual joy in the Lord, who is sovereign over all, including our trials. Our trials produce spiritual maturity, making us more whole.
Without trials, there is no transformation.
The angst we experience during trials just makes us human. God created us to glorify Him, but we tend to turn inward because of sin. Trials and testing are a means to an end, a reminder to run to the only One who can rescue us. The hope is that when life has knocked us down or brought us to our knees, we begin to posture our hearts to remember the who instead of trying to rationalize the why.
Sarah Nichols is a writer who loves encouraging women by sharing hope-filled stories that point others to Jesus. She lives in Tucson, AZ, with her husband and four kids. You can find more from Sarah at http://sarahnicholswrites.com.
