“I didn’t sign up for this!”, I cried with tears streaming down my cheeks. This wasn’t how I thought my life would be. This wasn’t the plan! How could this be the plan? It was all just too hard. Too impossible.

Can you identify with these thoughts and feelings? I suspect no matter who you are, where you live, or what your circumstances may be; that at some point during these past few months you have said or thought something like this. While maybe not to this extreme, how could you not have a few thoughts and feelings like these with a global pandemic rocking our entire world. 

These thoughts and feelings can come from so many different life experiences. You didn’t get to graduate the way you’d planned. You didn’t get the job you wanted and worked so hard for. You lost a loved one suddenly and unexpectedly. Your marriage ended though you didn’t want it to. You or someone you love received some sort of diagnosis. Whatever the situation, it is often a sense of tremendous loss that drives us to wrestling with feelings and thoughts like these. 

Over the years I’ve wrestled hard in this place. This place between thinking and feeling that, “life wasn’t supposed to be this way”, and trusting that, “God’s got this” whatever “this” is. I’ve experienced difficult circumstances looking through both sets of lenses, and I have come to see that trusting God in the midst of the hard is a far better way to go through life then fighting Him all along the way. 

Dealing with the Unexpected 

Sometimes things happen so suddenly or so completely without warning that we find ourselves in shock and unable to cope with the loss before us. Dealing with the unexpected and the unplanned can leave us feeling off balance, devastated at the loss, and even resentful toward God. After all, if God is a good God and all powerful then why didn’t He stop this unexpected thing from happening to us.

Dealing with the Unfair 

Sometimes in life we deal with situations that seem completely unwarranted and flat out unfair. You do everything right and then one day you find yourself experiencing difficult circumstances and through no fault of your own. It just doesn’t seem fair. We all intrinsically understand the principle of sowing and reaping. First you plant a seed and then you work hard to maintain it as it grows by watering it daily, giving it plenty of sunshine, and weeding it when needed, and finally one day you yield a crop that you can harvest. Your work is rewarded. Input equals output. A + B = C. We also understand that when someone lies, steals, or cheats they “get what they deserve” in the form of some sort of punishment. But sometimes in life we experience situations where input does not equal output, where A + B does not = C. 

Choosing Joy Over Anger

When the seemingly or outright unfair things of life lead us down the road to resentment and anger what are we to do? When someone has done us wrong or we feel that God has let us down, what are we to do with these thoughts and feelings? The apostle James encouraged us to choose joy over anger. He explained, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4). Essentially, he was saying not that the trials or hardships are fun, but that the endurance and spiritual maturity that is produced through the hardships is worth rejoicing over. A couple of things to know about this verse in the Bible. First this statement was originally made in a letter to the early Jewish followers of Christ who were being persecuted by the Romans, and who had been pushed out of their beloved city of Jerusalem into other lands. This was being said to a group of people, and by an apostle, who were under the threat of losing their very lives, and not because they’d committed any crimes. Clearly these were people who could certainly empathize with the unfair circumstances that we experience today. Second after he talks about how we should choose joy, he then says in the next verse, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” (vs 5). In other words, God is there ready and willing to help us through the hardship anytime that we ask. We are not alone as we go through the trials of life. I’m so thankful for that. Who better to have in your corner to help support you as you persevere through the hard and even the unfair things of life. Referring to Jesus in Hebrews 4:15 it says, “We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all-all but the sin. So, let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” 

Choosing Trust Over Fear

When dealing with the unexpected in life, the things that can stop us in our tracks and even wreck our whole world, we can find ourselves left fearing the future. Fear comes on us in times like these, because we have witnessed first-hand the evidence of the fact that we cannot control everything in our life. And that which we cannot understand, predict, and control we often fear. As a result, we may find ourselves moving forward in life in a perpetual state of fear that the unknown and unplanned for could happen to us once again and at any time. The truth is that it likely will. Life doesn’t come all tied up with a pretty bow. Life is messy and hard at times. And the more I live this life as a parent of a child with special needs, the more I find that there is one absolute, and that is that life is predictably unpredictable. This simple fact could strike fear into the heart of anyone who is looking for fail safes and go to’s and guarantees in life. So, what do we do with this? The answer lies in focusing not on what we fear, but in whom we trust. We’ve already covered the fact that we cannot control what we fear most: the unexpected. And if we look to ourselves, our friends, our co-workers, our family, our doctors, our teachers, or even our government to solve the unexpected circumstances of our lives our fears will never be quelled, because deep down we know that no person can control the circumstances of this life. But if we look to God and we place our trust in Him for the circumstances of our lives, we can be sure that what is unexpected to us and what may seem unplanned to us, He always has a plan for. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and future’.” In other words, there truly is a good and loving God who holds me, my heart, and all of my plans in His heart and in His hands. What a freedom that comes when I trust in Him. 

How about you? How do you deal with the unexpected and the unfair things of life? Do you struggle with fear and anger when these things happen, or when life doesn’t go according to your plans?