When Disappointment Steals Your Joy

The life of the Christian is far from perfect. This I know. There have definitely been seasons in our life where things are just floating along, nice and secure and then bam!, God throws in a curveball we did not see coming.
A few weeks ago, Joshua and I went to go see the movie "God's Not Dead," a low-budget movie with a Christian backing and very G rating. We felt we needed to go to it for several reasons, and once the movie was over, we definitely knew why.
Sometimes all it takes is a movie to snap us back to our senses. To help us remember that "God's not dead, He is surely alive!" and that even in the darkest, bleakest, often times most deafening moments of silence, He is still with us.
One of the scenes that stuck out to me the most was when a bitter son watched his mother declining through dementia, and he asks her, "How can you believe in a God who let's bad things happen to His people?" And she replied along the lines that often times God brings the Christian trials to strengthen them, and often time the devil is so busy trying to keep the non-Christian from going to God that he often does everything in his power to keep their life problem-free.
I think that is often our thought... "Why God, why do you allow us to endure frustration, disappointment, loss? When those around us don't care about You, don't love You, don't want You-- and we do? We want to do what You say and yet you're leaving us out here in this desert land?"
I remember through the 18 month long season of Joshua's job loss, back in 2008, I definitely felt God had abandoned us. I knew He hadn't, but it truly felt like He did. Everything around us was quiet and falling apart and looking back, God was shaking us to our core to just wait and be patient and trust in Him.
That is what He is doing today. He is telling us that He has this all figured out. That's what is so beautiful-- that when things make virtually no sense, I can step back and see His hand in it and trust that He knows what He is doing for the good of those who love Him. I needed that trial in 2008, for all of those long, bleak months, to discover this. It's amazing to say that now I am so thankful for that trial. It refined me and made me a better, more trust-filled follower because I now see that God did, indeed, have us in the palm of His hand.
If you are doubting His presence today, wondering where He went and questioning why He gives and takes away, take hope in His promises.
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." -- Jeremiah 17:7-8