How to Experience God’s Good Gifts in Every Season

As I drove home from work on a particularly overcast mid-winter day, I was overwhelmed with sadness that I am without a family. The thought came out of nowhere seemingly, and it hit me in the most tender part of my heart. Yes, I have a mother, father, brothers, and a sister with a brood of nephews and nieces which I love dearly. I also have wonderful friends, and I’m beyond grateful for each one of these beautiful people in my life.

But, I do not have a husband or children of my own – a deep desire that I’ve had for as long as I can recall. This missing piece in my life means that I do not have playmates to offer to my friend’s children. It means that I come home to an empty place after work. It means that sometimes I have endless hours of uninterrupted time alone unless I intentionally reach out and make plans with others. I realize that uninterrupted time is a beautiful gift …and I’m thankful for that and many other gifts during this season. In fact, I’m a firm believer in making the most of singleness while it lasts. Yet there’s a deep longing for a husband and children that is unrelenting. And so I grapple with the tension and the sadness that comes with a desire unfulfilled while simultaneously embracing the beauty of the gift of singleness.

Had I known the trials and sadness waiting for me when this dream of marriage and family was birthed in my being, I may have rejected the dream altogether. But several broken hearts later, I do not regret choosing to love, and I still have hope. I believe that nothing is impossible with God. And I dream of a day when God fulfills my hopes and dreams in a way that is abundantly above and beyond all I could think or imagine. Why? Because my hope is in the Lord. He alone will bring these things forth. And even if He doesn’t, Jesus is enough. I am content in abiding with Him.

Psalm 34 is very meaningful to me. In the first verse, David says, “I will bless the Lord at all times.” At all times. David’s life was one of many ups and downs, persecution, battles, and years of waiting before he stepped into his God given purpose of being a king. He wrote this particular Psalm in the time between his anointing as king and the fulfillment of becoming a king. The man hid and lived in caves because others were trying to kill him. Talk about a wild ride.

While my life is very different than David’s life – I can certainly relate to the ups and downs experienced while waiting. Thousands of years ago, David wrote this beautiful Psalm of praise in the midst of his own turmoil because he had made an intentional choice to bless the Lord at all times…even when life was hard. We all know that it’s easy to praise God when everything is going well. But what do we do when life is a mess and pain bursts forth uninvited?

Believe it or not, we have a choice. We can either react or respond. To me, reacting is when I don’t pause before I engage with the circumstance I’m facing. Reaction is acting without thinking. It’s allowing my emotions to rule me. Responding on the other hand, is the ability to exert self-control, to pause, to reflect, to analyze the options, and then decide how I want to engage in my circumstance. Responding still allows room for emotions – it just refuses to allow emotion to dictate my actions.

I had one such circumstance recently where I got to make a choice to respond or react and, it’s only by the empowering grace of God and many praying friends that I chose to respond instead of react. In the midst of one of my most broken moments in life, I decided to throw a party on the weekend I had planned on getting married, but didn’t. This wasn’t a pity party over my broken engagement and love lost. It truly was a celebration. Not a celebration of what had happened, but a celebration of who God is. While still reeling in pain, I made the choice to respond by turning my eyes on Jesus. I invited my closest girlfriends to a party entitled, “Taste and See That the Lord Is Good.” The name of the party came from this Scripture:

 “O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”

Psalm 34:8

With tears streaming down my face and surrounded by my closest friends, we started the evening with a time of worship together. I began with a prayer of thanksgiving and by reading another meaningful Scripture of praise and promise: Psalm 66. We sang several songs I had intentionally chosen and prayed between songs. It truly was a beautiful time of worshiping God together…even while feeling all the feelings that come with a broken heart. It was healing to not be alone on this particularly painful day.

In keeping with the theme of “tasting”, everyone brought a special summer dish to share. After we had visited while enjoying our favorite summer foods, we took time to intentionally express how each of us were “tasting and seeing” how the Lord had been good to us. You see, I wasn’t the only one with struggles and pain that day. Yes, my pain was massive, and the cause of it was quite public. But my friends’ struggles and pains were just as real and tangible even though hidden from the public eye. This exercise of pausing and reflecting together on where we saw God at work in our lives gave us all the opportunity to look up at God, rather than around at our circumstances. This is what community looks like. It was a beautiful dance of acknowledging the hard things in our lives and then spurring each other on to look to God, from where our help comes from. We chose to practice what David demonstrated in Psalm 34 – we praised God at all times.

I also shared openly with my friends all that God taught me through my circumstance. It was in this place of vulnerability that I invited them to provide me with accountability by speaking into my life if they see me going astray again. This conversation required humility as I made some confessions of how I made mistakes in my last romantic relationship. While no one likes making mistakes, the good news is that we don’t have to let mistakes define us, rather we can allow them to prepare us for whatever is ahead. So I flipped the script and turned those mistakes into lessons learned.

You know you have really good friends when they listen to you confess your biggest mistakes, look you in the eye, accept you for who you are, and love you into a better place. This is what I experienced that day.

James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.”

I see a few components in that verse that enable healing:

• Humility through the confession of sins in the presence of others
•  Friends who pray together
•  God who answers our prayers (He is our healer)

That night of choosing to praise God at all times with my dearest friends provided a beautiful avenue for living out James 5:18. I’m incredibly thankful for a community who loves me for me, who prays with me, and who inspires me to continue to respond to the upward call of Christ no matter what circumstances surround me.

So what are you waiting for? If you haven’t already, find your tribe. Love them well. Receive their love. Grieve together. Celebrate together. And practice praising God together at all times. Look up, not around. Fix your eyes on Jesus. With God’s help, decide today to commit to responding instead of reacting to life’s circumstances. This, my friends, will make all the difference while walking through pain and living in the tension of what you wish would be and what still isn’t. Your story isn’t over. God’s good gifts await you now and forevermore. After all, the absolute best gift is the Lord Himself.

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

Psalm 43:5

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