Have you ever wondered how God could work all things together for good in your life? Maybe you’re in a situation that feels impossible, a marriage that is unraveling, a job environment that is unhealthy and all you can see is HARD.
In my Proverbs 31 Ministries devotion today, I share how I wrestled with this in the midst of very difficult circumstances during and after our daughter’s adoption, and the ways God showed me HOW He was working things for “good” in unexpected ways.
If you hopped over from my devotion, I’m so glad you stopped by! As promised, here are a few photos that tell part of the story of us bringing our beautiful girl home. {And there’s special giveaway at the end of this post.}
All I could see were the hard parts. Everything we would have to give up: sleep, money, comfort, familiarity, others’ approval. All the hard things we would have to navigate: huge expenses and significant changes.
What if our sons resented us for re-arranging their lives forever? What if our parents and extended family didn’t approve? What if we exhausted our time, emotions and money only to end up with broken hearts and an empty bank account? How could God work all that together for good?
I could not see how. I could only see “hard.” Yet we knew God was calling our family to adopt a severely malnourished baby girl from Ethiopia. And in October 2009 we brought Aster home.
Was it hard? Yes. Even more than I imagined.
But as I trace God’s hand over the past five years since we brought Aster home, I see Him working countless things {together} for good. Most of all, I see a handwritten love letter sent to our little girl from her Heavenly Father, written on every page of our adoption story.
I see God working the hard things together for good. Despite our inadequacy, sadness and fear of the unknown when Aster was diagnosed with a speech disorder, global developmental delays, low muscle tone and sensory processing disorder, I now see God working it all for good.
I see God working the overwhelming things together for good. A year of sleepless nights brought out servant-hearted compassion in our teenage sons when they saw their dad struggling with depression caused by sleep-deprivation. I’ll never forget the night they decided to take turns sleeping on a mattress in their sister’s room to relieve her anxiety and give us back our desperately needed sleep.
I see God working even the embarrassing things together for good. Like the day I had a meltdown in my car and a stranger tapped on my window to see if I was okay. And that same afternoon, I ran out of gas on my way to get my youngest son at basketball which mean my oldest son, who had a new cast on his broken foot, had to push our car off the road. I see awesome stories for them to tell their children about me one day.
When my reality doesn’t look or feel like “good” to me, I ask God to help me see how. How he is keeping his promise that “in all things [He] works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Roman 8:28).
What I’ve discovered is this: God is always working things together for good, but not just for our good. Sometimes we are part of His working things together for someone else’s good.
You see, I believe Jesus heard a mother in Africa praying for her baby. A mother who was living in the middle of “hard” like I’d never imagined. A mother who couldn’t see how she could give her little girl the nurture and nutrition she needed.
Hagere: Aster’s birth-mother feeding her during our visit.
And when God heard that mama’s prayers, He tapped on the heart of a family in North Carolina who loved Him and were called according to His purpose. I also believe God saw an orphanage in Ethiopia searching for a forever family to provide unconditional love and medical care for a 6-month old, 8 pound baby with pneumonia.
So Jesus went back to that family in North Carolina who had been asking God to reveal Himself to them and through them, knowing this little girl would be an answer to that prayer.
And that’s when God started working the hard, impossible, and overwhelming things {together} for good.
Is there a relationship or situation in your life where all you see is hard? Have you asked God how He can work some part of it together for good?
I don’t know about you, but some days I need a tangible reminder that He can. A visual that prompts me to pray and helps me remember how He does, like the beautiful bead necklace I’m wearing below made from repurposed bullets found in the rubble of Ethiopian soil.
Each time I look at it, I remember how God answered a desperate mother’s prayers for her baby and filled my family’s longing to experience more of Him. Only He could know how much we needed the gift of a little girl to light up our world, and to remind us that He indeed can work even the hardest things {together} for good.
ENTER TO WIN To celebrate how Jesus takes the hard and heart-breaking realities of life and works them together for good, Proverbs 31 Ministries is partnering with Fashion & Compassion to create a beautiful jewelry line from repurposed bullets found in the rubble of Ethiopian soil. “SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS” under this post and you’ll be entered to win.
The From Bullets to Blessings Collection is handcrafted from Ethiopian bullets, dug out of rubble, and assembled by vulnerable and rescued women throughout Mexico and Charlotte, NC. CLICK HERE to find out more about the collection and the women who create these pieces. It’s a beautiful picture of God working the hard things together for good in their lives through Fashion & Compassion.
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Thank you for sharing this story! God has truly been revealing this to our family lately. We have been dealing with the struggles of my teenage stepdaughter making choices we never would have hoped or dreamed for her life. Yet God! God knew that this is what it was going to take for her to discover her need for Him, for her mother to deal with anger issues and for us to grow closer as a family! God has used this trial for her good and for our good. I love how God knows every detail of our lives and has the most beautiful stories written for our futures that we cannot even imagine!
What an answered prayer for me this morning. I am struggling so despperatly right now with my own daughter. As I came downstairs this morning I was reminded about praying for her specifically and your devotion this morning was the reminder I needed to remember that God DOES have a plan and I may not see it right now but I just have to trust in Him. Pray for me and my daughter, Megan, that we can work together peacfully and also that God will soften her heart to the help that so many are trying to give her. She’s 10 years old and is struggling at school with her Learning Disabilities, ADHD, and possibly dyslexia and dysgraphia. She is so angry at everything. Your prayers are SO appreciated. God Bless
Renee,
What a beautiful story and your daughter is a beautiful little girl. Please keep sharing with us the fruit that God reveals from your having opened up your heart to your daughter in her need just like He opens up His heart to us daily in our need.
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Renee. I am struggling with ME and it is affecting my marriage as well as friendships. I have allowed Satan to tell me how I am not good enough, not pretty enough. I am trying to hold onto God’s promises but I still struggle. Can you please pray for me?
Thank you for sharing. In the midst of my storm where all I can see is “Hard” I need to be reminded that God sees the “How”.
Thank you for sharing your story! May God continue to bless your family and may you feel his presence as he walks through every “hard” thing with you!
Amazing devotion, and perfect timing. My family is going through a very tough ‘season’ right now, and I sometimes feel SO emotionally inadequate to handle these trying times, but I have to remember GOD IS FAITHFUL and is working good in ALL things, maybe NOT for me. Thanks for sharing, and may God bless you. In HIS service, Terri.
I know a family who has adopted 5 children (three girls from China and a girl and a boy from Guatemala), several with special needs. It truly takes dedicated parents to undertake such a commitment as you have….Jesus is for sure at the center of your family. Thanks for sharing.
God is carrying me through remembering and grieving the beautiful, gentle man that I married and lost.
I began losing him to Alzheimer’s Disease which was diagnosed in 2008. And then I lost him completely when he passed away on July 12, 2014.
Through the hard times, God continues to provide soft landing places, mostly through the shared sacred stories of others.
Thank you for sharing the story of your beautiful family. May God and bless keep you all in His comfort and care.
~ teRi
What a beautiful story and what timing. Our adopted daughter (26) has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. We did not know this until recently and I usually felt like a failure as a mom. Who am I kidding, I still feel that way. Today her life is in a downward spiral. I am so concerned for her and her two precious boys. The boys, 5 and 2, are with us most of the time and we feel we should have custody but are afraid of what it will do to our daughter and that it may give their dad opportunity to gain custody which would not be good. He has a history of abusing women (we saw the evidence on our daughter many times before the courts intervened) and abusing children. He was however recently acquitted on the child abuse charges…we do not understand how the judge could reach that conclusion. My heart is so pained. Our family members (including our other children) do not understand fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and that adds to our burden. Some days we wonder if we misread God’s will when we adopted. Today’s blog was a good read for me. Thank you for sharing.
What an amazing, uplifting story of God’s love and grace! An awesome example of true Christianity in a broken world.
Your story really touched home with me. My husband and I have 3 biological children who are 20, 19, and 16 and a foster daughter we are in the process of adopting. She was placed with us when she was 5 months old. We were told she could possibly have Cerebral Palsy as well as many other issues. We felt like God put her in our home for a reason. She just turned 4 years old last week. She does not have Cerebral Palsy, however, she does have seizures, sensory processing disorder, and significant delays. Sometimes it seems so overwhelming and I wonder what we’ve gotten ourselves into. I wonder what others may think of us starting all over again with a little one with so many problems. Then I remember, this is what God calls us to do, to take care of the widows and orphans. She is a beautiful little girl with an adorable smile that melts my heart. It’s going to be a long hard road and we don’t know that she’ll ever be able to live on her own or have her own family, but it’s worth every bit of the journey. Thank you so much for sharing your story and reminding me that this is all in His hands.
This story was absolutely beautiful! What an inspirational story and a lesson to anyone struggling through the hard times and wondering and asking God, where is the good in all this? My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for awhile and when we found out we were pregnant on July 4th of this year, we couldn’t have been happier! Then at about 8 weeks in, I started to have some spotting but no cramps and my nurse assured me this was normal. When I woke up the next morning and saw the bright red blood, I knew something was wrong. So with a heavy heart and tears streaming down my face, I had an ultrasound and found out their was no heartbeat and we had lost our second angel in a years span and haven’t been able to get pregnant ever since. We have talked about adopting a child like Aster who needs a good family to raise her and take of her or him. Then, we found out on Monday that my boss has secretly hired someone to take my place and she will finish training at our other location tomorrow and we know the boss will be in tomorrow when his clinic closes after lunch to let me go. Not only our we struggling with the fact that no one including the doctor I work under has any idea why I am being let go and we can’t ask yet because the people in the office training her we’re all told they would lose their jobs if anyone told me or the doctor I work under, we are now struggling with the facts of being in the middle of moving into a new house and those expenses and wondering if we will ever be able to even adopt now living off of one income! So this story was truly a blessing to me and I am happy to hear that in God’s time and in His Will for our lives, we are going to make it through all this. Please pray for me and my husband as I know the power of prayers in numbers and thank you for this story!
Some hard things just seemed to get a whole lot harder today. While my emotions didn’t want to read this today, my heart was drawn to the words. Thank you for sharing.
Wow.!! You and your family are amazing. I wish for myself and our world to be soo selfless. As hard a decision it was, you listen to The Lord and followed where He led you. What a blessing and inspiration you are to all your followers. Thank you for the story.
What a beautiful story! I so needed this devotion and to read your story today! Thank you for allowing God to use you in the ways that He is!! Please pray for me that I, too, can find that purpose or direction for my life – be it hard or not easy to understand…
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story! We hope God lets us adopt someday.
God wanted me to read this today. My husband and I have Guardianship of our three year old grandson who has mild Autismwith a severe speech delay. We are 61 years old, so the beginning of our “Golden Years” is not how we expected life to be. We also had to uproot and move to Phoenix from Utah so I don’t have much of a support system in place.
Today has been an especially difficult morning as Gibson has had several meltdowns and I am feeling very inadequate in oh so many ways. It is picture day at his special needs pre-school and he refused to take a bath. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get him in the tub. After calling out to Jesus many times, I felt like he was telling me just to let him get dressed and to pick my battles. He may not have the nicest looking hair, but the picture will reflect where he is in his young life.
Our blessing, however, is to have this (usually) sweet boy with us. My daughter is a heroin addict, so God allowed us to take him out of a situation where he was not safe.
I cried many tears this morning asking for the strength to make it through. Gibson has settled down and in a few minutes we will go wait for the bus. Another morning successfully completed by the grace of God. I thank him for his new mercies every morning!
I enjoy everything you write but this was especially moved by this beautiful story of live and compassion and God’s ability to lead us and then sustain us in all situations!! Thanks for sharing! Love the jewelery and it’s significance! A perfect example of how God can turn bad into beautiful!
Thank you so much for this testimony. I feel God speaking to me this morning through this as I surely needed. Our lives right now an for the pa St year have been filled with so many “hard” things it becomes so overwhelming an Satan tries so hard to get us down. Seeing how good could come out of our life situation seems almost hopeless. I know if God can an does do “good” for that mother in Africa all the way to NC. Then he can surely turn “good” in our lives. Thank you so much for this today.it is just what I needed to be reminded of.