For the last year+, we’ve been going through what has felt like a never-ending storm. I could fill a book with all the house, farm, animal, health, work, and relational issues we’ve gone through since November 2022. And we kept saying, “When we get through this…” or “When this storm has passed…”

And then we said, “Surely God will show us the why soon,” and that turned into, “God, You’re gonna show us the why for all of this… right?”

And then finally, “God, are You still there? This storm has been raging for a while now. Did You forget about me?”

I saw some low moments, for sure. I had several instances where I was yelling at the sky and where my words felt like they were going no farther than the ceiling.

But I can tell you that yes, God was still there. He showed up in the voice of friends who reminded me of His goodness, even when He didn’t feel good to me. He showed up in surprise financial blessings that someone slipped under our welcome mat. He showed up in laughter with friends – a balm that soothed our hurting hearts and weary souls when everything else just felt plain awful. He was in so many moments with our kids, watching movies or playing board games. He was there when surprise chicks hatched from eggs on our farm. He is there every time we see our “yard rabbit” Dill hopping around the farm.

He’s there even in the hard things and the in-between places.

So many good things have still taken place even in the midst of the storm.

I’ve always heard this saying that goes something like, “You’re either coming out of a storm or about to go into one,” but I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. I think life is just plain hard. Always. An unrelenting series of stuff that’s difficult. That’s not me being pessimistic. I just know that Jesus warned us that in this life, we’d have trouble. To my knowledge, He didn’t ever quantify that trouble. He didn’t say, “You’ll have _ amount of trouble for amount of time, and then you won’t have trouble anymore.” He didn’t say, “You’ll have _ really great years where nothing bad happens, and then you’ll have _ years where really bad things happen.” He just said, “In this life, you’ll have trouble,” and His apostles told us to not be surprised when we face trials and tribulations of various kinds. They didn’t say how many – just that we should expect them.

So I’m not being pessimistic here. It’s just the reality of living in a fallen world.

I’m saying that we have to remember the second parts of those verses that say, “But take heart, for I have overcome the world,” and “These trials will produce patience, faith, and steadfastness in you.”

And I believe that even in the middle of the horrible things, joy can still be found. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. It still does. A lot.

Life hasn’t been “fair” to us these last fifteen months. We have experienced injustice. People have lied. People have manipulated situations. People have been cruel. People have walked away.

But none of that changes the fact that God is still good, even when my circumstances aren’t.

I have wrestled with God a lot over the last fifteen months. And that’s okay. Wrestling and then continuing to believe and walk with God is part of building faith. And I’m thankful for friends who have stuck out their hand when I was wallowing in the pit and told me I couldn’t stay there. I didn’t want to get up, but I knew I had to. The good news of that is that I wasn’t alone.

Over these last several months, the recurring theme I’ve noticed has been, “We need wider margins. Something has to give.”

We didn’t know what that was because everything seemed equally important. Everything was needed. Everything we were doing felt like it was what God wanted us to do.

Until very recently when it all came to a head.

While I am deeply heartbroken over the way things transpired over these months, and I am not feeling joy over the circumstances, I am choosing to fix my eyes on the Source of my hope and strength, so that I can choose joy in spite of the hard.

And I’m choosing to be thankful because all of these things opened our eyes to what we had to release in order to get those wider margins we’ve been looking for this whole time.

And I don’t know that we’ve come out on the other side of the storm at this point. Maybe it’s just a break in the clouds for a bit. That’s okay.

But I can say that once we released that thing we had to, we felt peace in the midst of all the heartbreak.

Heartbreak and joy can coexist, and “we can both acknowledge our pain and remember God’s goodness.”