By Nikki Stevenson
Have you ever found yourself looking at the unexpected circumstances of your life and thinking, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this”? So many things can trigger this response: the loss of a job, an injury or life-altering diagnosis, a seemingly irreparable marriage, rebelling or disabled children, the declining health of elderly parents, the death of a loved one, or facing a decision about your future that has profound consequences no matter your choice. These situations and others like them can show up in our lives without invitation or warning, leaving us feeling devastated and our view of the future bleak. They also have a way of confronting us with our inherent powerlessness to control our lives! How do we begin to find hope or peace in such disruptive circumstances?
Living on the other side of leaving Adventism, I can tell you that my husband and I are no strangers to life interruptions. Both leaving and the life after have been full of surprises along the way. Leaving Adventism felt an awfully lot like going through a divorce. Nevertheless, as complicated as that experience was, it was a severe mercy that brought us life. So, while this interruption was something that brought profound struggle, it was also something we could clearly see as a gift. But what happens when unexpected interruptions aren’t so easy to recognize as gifts? What do we do when they are not so clearly pointing us toward something better, toward something for our good?
I’m not sure there is one good answer, but I do know whatever the answer is, it’s found in the Word of God and in knowing Him—often through our suffering. One of the unexpected surprises of my life came in a way that left me initially feeling betrayed by God. You see, I had some very specific expectations for my adult years that were firmly rooted in my childhood. These expectations didn’t seem all that unrealistic to me, either. All I wanted was “normal”. My childhood was anything but normal. In fact, it was quite traumatic. There were many times as a child that I would promise myself and God that my adult years would be different. I spent a good deal of time as a child envisioning my “normal” future and praying for endurance to adulthood. I was going to marry a man who would never leave me or our “pile” of children that we were going to have, and we were going to happily serve the Lord and our family with a commitment to truth and to each other like nothing I ever saw growing up. We were going to participate in our kids’ lives, meeting their needs and encouraging their friendships, and as a family we would walk with the Lord. I envisioned a lot of energetic play and many fun family vacations. I was committed to never failing to meet their needs or leaving them lonely or afraid. I was going to create the life I wished I had and leave the pain of my broken childhood behind forever, without looking back.
By the grace of God, in many ways, elements of those dreams became my reality. The Lord chose for me a husband who deeply loves and is committed both to Him and to us. He gave us a son and a daughter full of life and love, who also long to know and love the Lord. I have had the blessed opportunity to be home with my kids and be a part of their lives in many of the ways I had dreamed I would be. While we are not perfect by any stretch, and while it’s within our family system that much of our sanctification takes place, we truly are a happy family, and I often marvel at how the Lord has blessed us with joy and a life full of love and commitment to truth and to each other.
Unravelled
Somehow my plans for “normal” all began to unravel when my daughter was around two and my son was five. I was in the early years of my new life in the Lord and was joyfully and studiously spending time in the word and in prayer on a daily basis. I loved being a Christ follower, even with the painful and unforeseen consequences of relational rifts that came with it. However, after some time living in this period of emotional highs and lows, I began experiencing confusing and relentless health issues. What seemed like months of tests began to reveal that these issues were undoubtedly intrinsically related to living with decades of elevated cortisol from a childhood marked by anxiety and fear. This new experience of leaving Adventism had been a stressful time, and my adrenal system had finally had enough and was calling it quits, and my body had begun creating antibodies to itself.
These new health issues made certain that we were done having children, and we began a season of overwhelming medical bills and unresolved questions—not to mention depression as I was most unexpectedly plunged back into the intrusive memories of my childhood. Not only was I physically unable to be all I wanted to be for my children and husband, but I was so depressed I was overwhelmed by motherhood and found myself in tears—a lot. I cannot tell you how many times I cried out to God, “How could you let this happen? How could you do this to me? You know it wasn’t supposed to be like this! These years were supposed to be normal! I have worked so hard for normal, God! I want my kids to have a normal and healthy mother! I want my husband to have a healthy and happy wife!” He knew better than anyone how I had counted on my adult years—and the years of my children’s youth—to be free from loss or trauma, and yet there I was, undergoing blood tests and scans, ruling out cancer, and trying to find answers. How could He let me face this after all of that?
Thank Him—for what??
One afternoon during that time, as I lay on the couch crying and losing the struggle with yet another illness, with my children playing at my feet, my phone rang. On the other end was the woman the Lord had given me to mother my heart and teach me how to trust His word. I was thankful to hear from her. It was a comfort to know that someone was concerned with my suffering. After a short greeting came the shock, “Nikki, have you thanked God for what He is doing that you cannot see?” In my young faith, her words struck me as less than compassionate. I was convinced that she didn’t understand how much I was suffering. I must have failed to communicate to her my deep sadness, my sense of betrayal that God would allow all this illness and uncertainty in the middle of my children’s toddler years, or that He would allow the threat of more trauma after a childhood riddled with it. I felt as though God was punishing me or emotionally terrorizing me—I wasn’t sure which! Perhaps I hadn’t adequately shared my sense of shame with her that I was failing to give my family “normal”! Perhaps I had been too subtle when I said I was struggling…?
No, as she spoke I realized she knew what I was facing, she even understood better than I did my vulnerability to deceptive ideas about God while in the middle of such a trial. She called to give me reality when I needed it the most. She began to share with me from her own experiences with disappointment and unexpected circumstances how important it is to thank God even when we don’t know what He is doing. She told me that nothing surprises Him, that He knew from before time began that this was going to happen, and it was something He allowed in my life for my good and His glory. She reminded me that Jesus said we would have many troubles in this life, but that He overcame the world and would not leave us as orphans. She reminded me that He is faithful and merciful. She told me, “For ‘this’ you have Jesus.”
Suddenly I understood that it wasn’t a lack of compassion that drove her startling question; it was her love for the Lord and her commitment to speak truthfully to me while pointing to Him—something she had once promised me she would always strive to do. After that talk I began to thank God for what He was doing that I could not see. At first those prayers were said with rote obedience through many tears, but as time passed they became more sincere and peaceful as I trusted His word and His promises. The very act of thanking Him was an act of trusting who He is, and submitting to His plan—as far as that plan was from my own!—and that impacted me deeply.
Idol of a “normal” life
I can’t tell you that I suddenly became completely healthy (although I did get some answers by His gracious provision and have been able to manage my symptoms for several years), or that all the pain of the past permanently resolved (although the Lord has proven to be sufficient in my weaknesses and has healed me in ways I never anticipated), but I don’t think that was ever the point. I had to learn that my plan for “normal” was not entirely God’s plan for me, and I had to submit my disappointments and my will to His good work in my life. While He knows the desires of our hearts and gives us good gifts, I praise Him that He does not allow us to live successfully for long in our oblivious and self-created unrealities which seek to filter all suffering— past, present, or future— and I want to suggest to you that those good gifts don’t always look how we expect them to. Sometimes, the most precious gifts come to us through the suffering. I had to give up my idol of a “normal” life and had to be willing to thank God for “Today” and seek to love Him and serve Him and trust Him in all circumstances of life, not taking for granted anything He has entrusted to my care or blessed me with. God had to be more important to me than my dreams and expectations for life on this side of eternity, and I had to know who He truly is and that who He is never changes, even when my circumstances do.
Through that time I came to believe that our good God does not allow us to live well while ignoring the truth about our lives and our disappointments. I believe He wants us to know that we are not omnipotent and self-sustaining, and that we need Him in all areas of our life. I believe that He wants us to see and admit what is real no matter how hard it is, and to accept that what has happened to us came to us through the heart of a Father who loves us. I believe that He wants us to thank Him for what He is doing that we cannot see or understand because we believe who He has said He is in His word. He wants us to trust that He is truly working all things together according to His purposes. I believe He wants us to walk with Him in reality so that we learn to trust Him with all of our heart—not just the parts we are willing to feel or face. When we do that, we can say with truthfulness, “A mighty fortress is our God”, because He becomes our all in all and through all.
In this fallen world far too many terrible things happen that are not “supposed” to happen! Parents should never have to burry their child. A child should never endure abuse at the hands of someone they should be able to trust with their life. A baby should never meet its end while inside its mother’s womb where it’s supposed to be safe—and at the hands of a doctor who has sworn to protect life! A school should never have to hear the sounds of gunshots ringing through its hallways. There are myriads of events that should never happen—it’s just not supposed to be this way—and yet, what are we to do when all the “shoulds” in the world cannot change reality?
I believe we go to the Word of God, and we look to the truths in there which reveal to us a loving, compassionate, all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, merciful, and sovereign God who will work even these things together for our good and for His glory, and who will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. I believe we are to remember that our God is a God who is both immanent and transcendent; He is outside of time. and He already has a plan to execute justice for all the evil that exists in our world. I believe we are to meditate on what we know to be true about Him: that He is our true Father who cares about and counts every tear. He is not idle; He is not slow to act; His timing is perfect, and He is the one who redeems all of our losses in His time according to His will.
God is not surprised by or indifferent to our diagnosis, our lost job, our departed friend, our parents’ health decline, our children’s struggles, or our hurting marriages—He is there with us, walking through everything with us and purposing it for our good and His glory in ways we may not understand at the moment. He is the God of all comfort and the Father of mercies! For those truths we thank Him, and we ask Him to keep us firmly planted in reality where we can trust Him to be our all sufficient Abba, and where we can truly find healing and freedom from the chains of our own wrong thinking and from the walls of our own false fortresses. I believe that it is by walking in truth with our God that we find our hope and peace when the world would tell us we ought have none.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen (1 Peter 5:10–11).
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