Sometimes it is when you least expect it that life throws a curve ball. That happened this last month. I have a close friend who is
experiencing a major life curve ball, the kind of ball that hits the batter, then the umpire, then the catcher and somehow bounces off the catcher and hits anyone left within range. Sort of like that Seinfeld episode, The Spit Heard ‘Round the World.” (Honestly, if you don’t like Seinfeld….I just don’t know if we can be friends…I make way too many Seinfeld references!)
The sad thing is the result of this curve ball is that my friend’s marriage and family are unraveling. The other sad thing is that we all have someone we know whose experiencing the same thing, it may even be you. I will never forget the day my world started unraveling. I had someone very close to me come and tell me my then husband had cheated on me…with her. My whole world stopped, except I still felt like I was trapped on one of those horrible carnival rides that wouldn’t stop spinning, leaving me sick to my stomach. Learning about what had happened was only the beginning of a landslide as well.
I’ve talked with enough women to know that I am not alone. Lives…marriages…families… shatter every day. I can say with confidence though that God had me in the palm of his hand even when everything was falling apart. He had blessed me with the best friends a girl could have – one who would get on an airplane and fly across the country without even knowing why she had to (thank you Misty) and others who came over and literally picked me up and prayed God’s word over my life. I honestly don’t know how I would have survived that time without God and His provision of my friends.
I often wonder how women endure these kinds of blows in their lives without Jesus, our Comforter and Healer. Even those of us who know and love the Lord can experience a crisis of faith during this time. My faith was definitely rocked, but God’s love for me was steady and sure. In the end, I had to decide, do I…
(1) Throw my entire faith away? Because, let’s face it, if God would allow this to happen to my family, do I even want to know Him, let alone worship Him?; OR
(2) Continue to walk in faith, even without seeing or understanding? Do I decide that ‘Yes, there still is a God’ and ‘Yes, I still trust Him’ even though life has unexpected, painful twists.
By God’s grace, I chose the latter and He has proved time and time again that He loves me and has wrote a plan that will take the ugliest stuff and turn it into something that will bring Him glory.
If someone you know is going through this right now, come alongside of them. Be open to the Holy Spirit and whatever he asks of you. Sometimes you are needed to help pick up the broken pieces of a shattered life. Sometimes you are needed to speak the truth in love into their life. Sometimes you are needed to [….insert whatever He tells you to do.]
In the beginning of this post I was referring to the unraveling of a life. When I think of that I see a piece of yarn being pulled from a completed work. At some point the unraveling stops and that is when, if we let Him, God goes in and completes a new work that doesn’t even compare with the first version. Hmm…am I going to let God create a new masterpiece in me?? You betcha’.
