Have you ever poured your heart and soul into something and have it not turn out the way you hoped?  Once more, you are stuck — trying to pick up the pieces, constantly examining every angle, reconstructing in your mind where you went wrong.  

I know I have. 

There are some aspects to life we never understand.  We are taught that if we do our best, if we give it the ol’ college try, that somehow things are just supposed to end well.  We are able to glean from the experience and take it home like a trophy.  We will have something to show that we were in it to win it. 

Only that’s not how it feels.  We are disillusioned to find that our effort and our outcome don’t match.  We are left hallow.  Empty.

There are always questions that linger, sometimes even for years down the road.   Why?  Wasn’t I good enough?  Smart enough? Pretty enough?  What could I have done differently…?  Questions like these haunt us, following us like a shadow, weighing us down.  We want to reinvent ourselves, start fresh, create new vision and purpose.  The problem is, our feet are stuck in yesterday.

What in the world do we do?  Why has God not lifted the yoke that keeps us tethered to situations and people who have long seen their day?  I wish I knew.

Like you, I have heard all the cliche’s, all the catchy phrases that are supposed to tie up our circumstances into neat little bows like packages of wisdom - “It wasn’t meant to be!” “There is better out there!” “Rejection is protection!” 

You are dressing open heart surgery with a bandaid and wonder why you’re not healing.

What I have come to understand, is that some things don’t just take time, they take a whole lot of it.  It’s never just a matter of “moving on.”  I think we are supposed to mourn, we are supposed to dwell on our “what if’s,” we are supposed to examine the post mortem.  And though none of this ultimately resolves our hurt, it does perhaps help us to isolate it.  It is only then, when it no longer consumes us, that we can sense a new perspective taking shape.

God doesn’t ask of us what the world does.  He’s not looking down, shaking his head and saying “You’re not over that yet?”  He is infinitely patient when we come to Him, reciting our litanies of why things are hard, how we feel wronged, and the begging of Him to do something about it.  We want a miracle.  We want to see Him move and change our failures into victories.

God always works from the inside - out.  He sometimes has to change us, so that we can change our circumstance.  He helps us to see new pathways that before we had not wanted to acknowledge.  He desires for us to understand that bad things happen, that people have free will, that we are not always going to have the answers we want.  He is not the cause of the things that bring us to our knees, but He is there with us.  He wants us to trust Him with showing us the way through it.

It’s what we do while standing in the wreckage that determines our tomorrows.

It’s hard to believe, isn’t?  How can good come out of sickness, addiction, persecution, or failure?  How can losing a job or someone that we love, possibly provide us with triumph?  How can good come from devastation?

Only He knows. 

Here is what I cling to when I have done all that I know how to do.  I sense Him in my suffering.  I believe in His plans even when I don’t see the evidence of where He is taking me.  I surrender to my faith in Him even when I still question why.

All of this is easier said than done.  

He is the glue that holds us together when everything around us is falling apart.  He gives us glimpses of possibility, of renewal, of new life.   He reminds us that our present hurts and circumstances are not our life… They are fodder for what comes next.

Hold on. I know how hard it is. You are enough. 

Despite what it looks like, God knows what He is doing.  Keep your eyes on Him and push through it one day, one hour, one moment at the time.

You are not forsaken. You have not failed.  You will see victory again.

Believe it.