When the Unexpected Is Breaking You

God often uses the unexpected and the unwanted to bring about the best in our lives. But it requires us to let go first.

God often uses the unexpected&the unwanted to bring about the best in our lives. But it requires us to let go first. Click To Tweet

Let go of our expectations. Let go of our perceptions. Let go of our perceived control.

And then to open our hearts to receive the fullness of what He has for us.

The End or the Beginning?

In my world, many mornings begin like too many others: washing my 17-year-old daughter’s mattress pad and sheets. With significant global developmental delays, Rachel’s independent skills (including hygiene) fall far behind her peers.

As she’s grown, washing my girl’s bedding has become a nearly daily occurrence. Certain mornings I just want to scream, “I’m done! I can’t do this anymore!”

And I mean it. Caring for a forever-toddler can be exhausting. It zaps me of all the strength, patience and understanding I possess.

And then, miraculously, when I have nothing left, God pours into me all His strength, patience and understanding.

That’s the mystery of grace. That’s the miracle of transformation. That’s the God we serve. That’s the love He has for His rebellious and often blind children like me.

Our finite gets replaced with His infinite. Our weakness gets replaced with His strength. Our heart of flesh gets replaced with His heart of spirit.

And we love, we care, we step up, we serve.

Because at our end is really the beginning. The beginning of a life of significance and meaning beyond anything we could imagine.

When we give up our perceived control and give all to God, we discover how to really live. It’s a life, not devoid of suffering and unwanted happenings, but filled with joy and peace and purpose in the midst of those.

When we give up our perceived control and give all to God, we discover how to really live. Click To Tweet

Blessings in the Unexpected and Hard Places

Raising a child with special needs is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It’s also one of the best.

Raising this special child who pushes me to the end brings me to the beginning of so many amazing and wonderful things.

Serving Rachel teaches me humility, exposing my pride to the cleansing light of Christ.

Ministering to Rachel’s daily needs reminds me of how desperately dependent I am on others too, …

• on family and friends for daily encouragement and support
• on God for His daily mercy and grace (I cannot do this without Him!)

 … and this dependence is necessary and good.

Raising Rachel has cultivated patience in a heart that was once sorely lacking. I don’t believe my family would slap me with the label of patient quite yet, but I’ve been stretched far beyond my default in this area.

Watching Rachel age while her abilities lag ever farther behind that of her peers forces me to define success differently than society does.

I now appreciate the capacity to demonstrate love and compassion far more than possessing self-sufficiency and independence.

I now see a successful life as centering on relationships instead of high-paying jobs and owning nice things.

I now look for the beauty in the hard (it’s there), to see gifts otherwise missed.

I now focus more on the eternal than the temporal.

I am now more likely to give thanks for what I do have, than to lament what I lack.

The Breaking and the Beautiful Rebuilding

I didn’t want to change. I tried to do this special need mothering thing on my own, thinking I had enough stamina to go the distance. Then I ran into the end of all I had to offer.

And it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

The thing that most devastated me at first brought the most positive changes in me in the end. Doesn’t that sound like God’s miraculous work?

The thing that most devastated me at first brought the most positive changes in me in the end. Click To Tweet

No doubt about it. Dealing with the unexpected and unwanted breaks us, but in that breaking comes a rebuilding far more beautiful than the original. It produces growth not otherwise possible.

Dealing with the hard breaks us, but in that breaking comes a rebuilding far more beautiful than the original. Click To Tweet

Trust God

In your unexpected and unwanted places, trust the process. Trust your God. Trust that this hard thing will lead into a most treasured gift.

Mine certainly has! 

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5 ESV

Reflections: In what unexpected/unwanted place do you find yourself? What lessons can you learn from it? How can I pray for you?

Going on 5 years of counting and I’m nearing 5,000 gifts in Ann Voskamp’s Joy Dare! What a blessing! Here are numbers #4,852–4,872. Read my entire list by clicking here.