Scriptures: 1 Peter 1:7, Psalms 71:20-21, Isaiah 43:16-19

Is This As Good As Life Gets? 

For many years, God allowed me to suffer through numerous hardships that initially left me hopeless, frustrated, joyless, and longing for answers. I wish I’d understood at a younger age the importance of a biblical foundation because when it comes down to it, the only way to get through trials with joy is to study God’s Word, know His character, and be in a relationship with Him. 

After so much heartache, no amount of self-help or motivational words could save me. Have you ever been there? In a place that is way out of your depth or limping through trials that continue to debilitate? I began to believe my life wasn’t worth living. I couldn’t fight back anymore, and I started to question everything. 

But with each intense crack I experienced, anger, complaints, selfishness, lack of forgiveness, control, and comparison stole my joy and kept me from living free in the victory I knew God had provided through His Son. What I believed in my head and felt in my heart were very different realities. 

Because I misunderstood how intertwined the gospel and sufferings are, I kept myself from believing the truth about God’s character and experiencing joy in my worst seasons of life. I was desperate to experience Christ’s joy and Christ as my joy. 

Philippians 1:29 says, “You have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for Him.” (Read that with joy as a synonym for privilege.) So we have the joy of trusting in Him and the joy of suffering for Him. The privilege of sharing in Christ’s suffering is so countercultural in our world. I had lost my way. 

When we understand that our suffering is implicit in our joy, our perspective on hardship and pain begins to change. I have learned that the two most important ways to maintain joy are knowing His Word and believing the truth about God. Everything starts with our understanding of the gospel and building an unshakable foundation on the character of God. 

In the days to come, we’ll ask, How do we even fight for purpose and take back our joy when life is more than we can handle? I’ll share some of my struggles and my testimony of how God helped me overcome them in hopes that you, too, can still fight for joy when life is more than you can handle. 

Do you believe there are places in your life that God wants to restore? From where has your joy been taken?

Scriptures: Mark 8:34-35, Jeremiah 15:16, Hebrews 4:12-13

Be Grounded in the Word

As the pandemic began in 2020, our world was going in a million different directions as people rushed to find answers. During this time, I realized studying God’s Word was the only certainty I could stand on. 

For years, I considered myself to be God’s servant, a follower of Christ. Even a witness. From John 8:31-32, I recognized that immersing myself in Scripture was a priority: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The other roles would then flow out of that understanding. 

Going back to the basics of working out my salvation and being a student of the Word brought more joy and consistency to my life than anything else. I recognized how important it was for Christians to have a biblical worldview and the truth it provided. Something I found invaluable was investing in a new study Bible. 

I became a student of the Word and prioritized my own relationship with Jesus. Over the years, learning how to use commentaries and reading different translations helped me develop a greater understanding of God. I even loved going all the way back to the Greek and Hebrew meanings and cross-referencing those with what I was reading. The best part was that God met me in my doubt and questions, and I experienced his presence and care. My faith wasn’t based on what my friends and family believed or what I had been told. It was mine all along. 

Trials come our way. We need to know why we believe what we believe so we can stand on the truth of our faith and remain joyful in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:16). The Bible is the revelation of Christ Himself and what He wants to communicate to the world. Joy and hope will come to our lives as we grow in our understanding of the gospel and the authority of Scripture. It’s like a light bulb goes off, and we finally see things for what they are. My views on God, the world, myself, His purpose for me, and how I live completely changed with deeper clarity of God’s transformative Word. 

Prayer: Father, give me a growing desire to fall in love with Your Word. I pray that Your words will come alive and that You will use the Bible to speak to me, change me, and be my sustaining bread of life.

Scriptures: Psalms 86:15, Isaiah 26:3, 1 Peter 5:10-11

Believe The Truth About God 

When I was in college, I went through a horrific experience that made me doubt God’s love and protection over my life. I hit rock bottom the night I was raped, and it left me wondering how I could recover or trust God again. He claimed to love me and could have stopped this traumatic event, but He didn’t. He is all-powerful and all-knowing, so He could have put someone in my path to help, but He didn’t. I couldn’t understand why God didn’t fulfill His promise to protect me. 

I went to the book of Psalms: “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble” (46:1). God hadn’t been my refuge that night. Instead, it felt as though He’d forsaken me. He allowed me to be defiled. Did I do something wrong? Why didn’t it feel like He was the loyal God others claimed Him to be throughout the Bible? 

The truth was that I had little prior experience with trauma and was left confused about who God was. The fact that God didn’t show up in some way when I needed Him most felt like the biggest betrayal of my life. I felt unloved, unseen, uncared for, and unknown. While all those feelings are valid after a traumatic event, they reveal something deeper. 

I misunderstood the powerful nature of God. I forgot my place in life and sank under the weight of it all. Miraculously though, I kept talking with God. 

He started showing me the correlation between my pain and being crucified with Him. This truth became so powerful. “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:4). He carried my sin and shame on that cross and my grief and sorrows. He bore for you and for me: sickness, death, relational issues, abuse, anything that people do to us, anything that life brings, and our personal sin. 

I had not grasped that on the cross, He also experienced all the pain that I would walk through in my life. Knowing that He shares in my sufferings lets me unite with Him in the hope He secured for me. As I searched for Him, Scripture started making more sense, and I saw glimpses of His character as I read. This previously far-off God was slowly becoming my Comforter, Provider, and loyal Father. 

Prayer: Thank You for being the only sure thing when my world seems to be crashing down around me. Help me to always trust Your character over my own feelings.

Scriptures: Psalms 40:1-3, Matthew 20:28, Hebrews 6:10

Serve Others 

When I’m crawling through the darkest trenches of life, the last thing I want to do is to serve someone else. But when I look back, it’s evident that God has used me to serve others during my own hardships. I see how He orchestrated circumstances that invited me to focus on others instead of myself. He uses us in our weakness so that His power may be displayed: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Less than two months after the assault, the head of women’s ministries and missions at our college group called me. She wanted to meet in her office to talk. I didn’t want to talk to anyone during that time. Silently suffering can do that to you—it can isolate you when you need people the most.

After putting it off for a short time, I finally scheduled a meeting. We made small talk for a couple of minutes, and then she said, “Nicole, I want you to lead the missions trip to Nepal next summer.”

I immediately burst into tears and said, “Absolutely not.” Instead of feeling excited for the opportunity, feelings of failure and a running list of painful memories flooded my mind. I told her the details of my shattered circumstances, the doubt I was feeling, and the depression that was slowly taking over my soul. Her response forever changed me.

“I’m so sorry you’re walking through this, Nicole, but God wants you to lead this team. You are broken and have nothing to offer, so I know God will step in and work in huge ways. Let Him be your strength and wisdom. Let Him heal you and lead you so you can be the best leader.”

Her compassion and honest leading showed me that meeting people where they are, in their brokenness, was how I wanted to lead and serve going forward. God meets us right where we are and receives us just as we are—and He chose a willing woman to display this hope to me in my desperate hour.

This was the moment when God began redeeming and mending my unraveled life. Having someone believe in me despite my weaknesses and all I’d been through changed my perspective on life, second chances, and God’s redeeming and loving power in our lives. Experiences like that make me want to be more selfless.

In what painful places in your life have you been shown compassion and understanding? How does Christ respond to your brokenness and fear?

Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, John 16:33, Luke 6:47-48

Purpose In The Pain

I find the story of Moses extremely reassuring. Despite Moses’s doubts and fears, God remained gracious and involved in his life. Moses doubted God (Exodus 3:11), questioned His plan (4:1), thought he was unqualified (v. 10), and even ended a conversation with God by saying, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else” (v. 13). Yet God still used him. Can you believe that? 

Over and over again, God involved Moses and Aaron in miracles and in His grand plan to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. “The LORD said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ ‘A staff,’ he replied. The LORD said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’ Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it” (vv. 2–3). 

God instructed Moses to use what he already had—what was literally in his hand—to demonstrate God’s power and liberate His people. Moses’s clean hand became diseased (v. 6), and his staff turned into a snake (v. 4). Aaron summoned frogs by stretching out his staff (8:5–6), and the plague of gnats came when he struck the dusty ground (vv. 16–17). 

While God is powerful enough to do anything on His own, His desire is ultimately to use His people to make His glory known throughout the world and in the lives right before us. 

That is what our lives are all about. Making Christ known. Even in our suffering, even in our tears, even in our pain, even in our questions. Because there may be no reason for our pain except “that the works of God might be displayed” (John 9:3). 

And we get to choose if we will take Him at His Word and trust His authority over our lives and those we love. I personally will never get to a place where I’m “okay” with pain, but it’s about being made more like Christ. It’s about His glory, not ours. His crown, not our own. His words of truth, not “my truth.” His power revealed, not our personal agenda. Following Jesus means dying to ourselves, surrendering our desires, and being made completely new. 

That is where true joy is found. While the world preaches self-love and lies, Jesus is whispering, “Come.” The joy that awaits us is a newfound understanding and a new way of life (2 Cor. 5:17). 

Prayer: May my pain be used for Your purpose. Restore to me the joy that comes only from You. My life is Yours. I love You, Jesus. In Your name I pray, amen.