But It’s Good

Yesterday I sat with a friend, a widow who has been blessed with a new love, tucked into her heart with her old one. She remarried a couple of years ago and lives a full and busy life. Grandchildren, travel, and regular life responsibilities keep her on the move. She mentioned that it’s been eight years since her husband passed away, and we both just stopped to marvel that it’s been that long. I’m sure 25 years ago she thought she had a good idea of what this phase of life would look like. But she was wrong. Things changed in an instant when her husband suddenly passed away. I asked her about that. She agreed this wasn’t the life she expected, “But it’s good.”

In a strange way, I identified with that sentiment. I think we all face surprising circumstances that can turn our lives on a dime. Many of the expectations that we had about how the future will turn out will fall by the wayside when a new baby comes, when a loved one passes away, when a pink slip enters the picture, when a child goes astray. Who knows how many combinations of unexpected happenings direct the paths that we wind up walking in life? All I know is that living through them can be tough.

I believe if we wait long enough the Holy Spirit will begin to reveal more and more of the good in the surprising, sometimes devastating, ways that God sanctifies us. God’s will is so much more complicated than we imagine. Nothing that happens is just for one purpose–there is so much meaning behind everything God does that if we could track the endless purposes in just one circumstance that He brings into our lives, we wouldn’t have the brain power to understand them all. But this I know is true: one of the purposes of that unexpected turn that your life just took is to make you holy.

God uses all kinds of means to refine us, to make us more like Jesus. And there isn’t much that will cause us to cling to Him more than the unexpected. We often feel afraid, cheated, angry, and alone when our visions of what would be are shattered. Once we are operating in the heartspace of what could have been, well, it takes time for us to begin to see God’s work in us. Take heart! This is where the hardest, but most fruitful part of sanctification happens. We realize that we aren’t in control of our lives, at least not as much as we once thought we were, and that forces us to focus on the One who is in charge. Sometimes it isn’t pretty for a long time, this process of growing in holiness. Sometimes we face bitterness and longing, anger and resentment.

But God is faithful to continue working. Then eventually, you wake up and you realize that God has turned your heart toward Him like never before. You see that He has used this circumstance to draw you closer to Himself, to help you understand what it really feels like to be held in the arms of a sympathetic Savior who wants nothing more than to see you grow in holiness. One day you’ll be having a conversation with someone who will inquire about this new life that you didn’t expect or ask for, a life that turned out completely different than you had pictured. And you’ll surprise yourself when you are able say with total confidence: Yes, this isn’t what I expected. But it’s good.