I stood, frozen in fear and frustration in my entryway, hand on the partway turned doorknob. Closing my eyes, I drew in several deep breaths, silently urging myself to open the door and walk out. “How did I get here,” I thought, “to this place where I’m unable to leave the seclusion of my house, even to simply check my mailbox, without the overpowering sense of dread and anxiety consuming me?”
Hello again! In Chapter 2 of It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, Lysa TerKeurst posed a question I want to invite you to wrestle with for a bit:
“What if disappointment is really the exact appointment your soul needs to radically encounter God?”
You know that day at my door (written about above)? I found myself in that frozen place during a bombardment of difficult disappointments in my life. However, dread and anxiety weren’t all I unexpectedly came face-to-face with. I also radically encountered God!
No, I didn’t end up walking out my door that day. Instead, I trudged back to my couch in defeat, hitting play on my all-too-familiar reel of disappointments. But this time, as the overviewed images flashed through my mind, another forgotten memory came clearly into view. A happy one of God placing the call to women’s ministry in my heart.
As God reminded me of that seed He’d planted all those years ago, a bud of hope sprang to life! In response, I slid to my knees, lifted my hands and tear-drenched face to the heavens and, in full surrender prayed, “Lord, I can’t do this. I’m too broken. But YOU can. Forgive my wanderings. Wherever You lead, I’ll go. Whatever You say to do, I’ll do in You.”
Looking back, I’ve come to realize I had to get to the end of ME. And God knew that season of disappointment is what it’d take. Without it, I would’ve missed my full surrender appointment with Him. I would’ve missed getting to be here with you today.
But sharing this isn’t about me. It’s about you and the doorknob you’re struggling to turn due to disappointment. It’s about God leading you here to plant the seed in your heart that Shattered, even to the point of dust, is not the end.
Shattered wasn’t the end for Jesus on the cross.
Shattered wasn’t the end for Lysa’s marriage.
Shattered wasn’t the end for me in my entryway.
And shattered isn’t the end for you.
Friend, God has a divine appointment waiting to intercept your difficult disappointment. A plan to pick up your dust and begin making you new, too.
Praying for you!
Kat