A Break in the Clouds: Encouragement When Trials Keep Coming

{This post originally appeared as a guest post at Elizabeth Loves.}

I remember back in college hearing a preacher say that everyone is either going into a trial, in a trial, or just coming out of one. I was just a little freshman at the time and kind of thought, Huh, I’m not really…

I can say that I didn’t really have any trials up until that point. But ever since my junior year when I started getting sick all the time, and then my diagnosis of fibromyalgia just six months after graduating, it really feels like the trials haven’t let up, now about four years later.

In contrast to seemingly never-ending trials, something I know I’m not alone in, I feel like we very often hear encouragement along the lines of “God will always be with you, even when things get hard sometimes. Life won’t always be easy, but when it’s not, He’ll never leave you.” We are warned that hard times will come and that God will be with us then too. And that is true.

But I feel like there are many people, like me, who don’t so much need to be told God will still be there “if times get hard.” We rather need to be encouraged that times will not always be hard. Not warned that hard times will come but rather encouraged that rest will come.

We know God is there through it all, helping us make it every single day. And just like anyone else, we do need to be reminded that He’s not going anywhere. But we also need to be reminded that there will be peace eventually. When one thing after another is going wrong—I don’t mean just losing your car keys, spilling food on your clothes, and your dog peeing on the carpet; I mean a diagnosis, inability to find a job, one medical test after another, a sudden death, an accident: events that can shake you to your core and turn life upside down permanently—we need to be comforted with the hope that things won’t always be this way. 

And while as Christians we know at least in the next life we’ll have such relief that these trials will all fade away, we also know that God knows what He’s doing, that He sees every tear we cry, and that He’s not out to get us. Every trial has a reason, whether our human minds can see it or not. But as they say, “This too shall pass.” When one storm after another keeps coming, there has to be a break somewhere.

For me, the storms just kept coming over the past four years as my health only got worse, and then my husband and I planned to move to another state for a new job that ultimately fell through, but not until we had moved out of our apartment and were staying with my parents for just a couple of months in anticipation of the move. That temporary stay last summer turned into a year—something we never expected—and finding a new job just would not happen.

I finally felt a break start to come last fall when we found a new doctor who could actually help. I felt like I had a new life again, just knowing how much I could possibly improve. Then as the months went on and I didn’t improve as much as we were all expecting, the storms rolled back in.

But now, just a couple of months ago, my husband got an interview for a job in the same state we couldn’t wait to move to a year ago, and he got the job. We finally found an apartment in the area and are finally on our own—like a married couple is supposed to be!—in an area with all kinds of great doctors. This is all truly a dream come true for us—a break in the clouds we thought would never come.

After all this time, all the tears, the never ending trips to the ER, the new health issues, the disappointments, the uncertainties, it looks like we may have found a break from the storm. Another storm will probably be on the way, but the same God Who will be there “even if life gets hard” will be there if life seems to stay that way. And in His mercy, He’ll know when to tell the rain to stop. 

And for that promise, I am very grateful.

"For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.”

(2 Corinthians 1:8-10)

Read some of my thoughts on rain here: