Sovereignty

 Happy December 1st! 

Can you believe December is already here? November went by way too quickly haha The last half of this year feels like it flew by for me in a blink of an eye. With December comes reminiscing and remembering the past year, at least for me anyways. One of my favorite things to do at the end of a year is to look back and see where I started and how far I've come. But this post isn't exactly a wrap up post. I want to talk about something that I think God has been pressing into my heart this year and especially in the past few months. I've always known about God's sovereignty. That He created all things and reigns over all things. That every good and perfect gift comes from Him. Even the bad things in life are ordained and known by Him ahead of time. He's sovereign in a way we can't fully grasp with our human minds. 

But His sovereignty hit me the most this year. The thing that made me realize that was a woman I follow on Instagram who's daughter got really sick over Thanksgiving. She wrote a post saying how even in this hard moment God was sovereign and this was ordained by Him before it had even come to pass. That really struck me. I could give lots of other examples of godly Christians showing me what it's like to rest in His sovereignty on and off social media, but that was one of the most recent ones. It made me realize how prevalent His sovereignty has been all year. All year I have had to cling to the knowledge that God is still good in the good times and the bad. That He isn't surprised by anything that happens and that everything is planned out and allowed by Him. We live in a fallen world and because of that, there is sin and bad things that happen. Even in those things, God still uses them for good. It was a bit of an internal struggle for me and sometimes still is to reconcile the fact that God does allow bad things to happen to grow our faith and sanctify us. But it's also made me realize even more how involved He is in our every day lives. 

There were a lot of really amazing things that happened this year, but there were also a lot of really hard things too. I said goodbye to my best friend in January. I felt lonely and I grieved for a lot of this year because of that loss. We had good friends who lost loved ones this year to tragic circumstances. My aunt and cousins lost their husband and father in October and we had to go to the funeral. A new really good friend moved away during the summer to pursue his dream job and our book club came to an end which was really sad to me. Of course, as someone who lives with anxiety and depression there were some low moments due to that. And this is a small thing but still made me really sad, but my brother gave away his bird that my mom was really attached to last week. 

All of that is sad and hard in varying degrees, but in every circumstance God was sovereign. He was and is in every situation that happened this year and that's comforting to me. 

I never realized how comforting His sovereignty is until this year. All these things may have blind sided me and been hard in different ways, but none of them surprised Him. He knew they were coming and it's comforting to know that not a single bad thing that happens to us goes to waste. Sometimes He allows these things to happen to sanctify and grow us and sometimes bad things happen because we live in a fallen and sinful world. And when those things happen because our world and the people who live in it are broken and sinful, it's comforting to know that God can use what often times feels like random, senseless bad things for His good and our good. That nothing is wasted with him. I feel so much peace from that and I hope you do too. 

I saw this post on Instagram a while ago and someone was talking about sometimes when we walk away from something or something bad happens it doesn't always have to be better or there doesn't always have to be something better waiting for us on the other side. I totally get where she's coming from and in a way I agree with her words. But as someone who struggles with being pessimistic and with depression, I don't like to think that way and something about it didn't sit quite right with me. God doesn't promise us an easy life. Jesus told us there would be trials and tribulations. But He also promised us that He would be with us through the ages. That He would be present and sovereign over it all. So, from a worldly perspective, is there always better waiting for us on the other side of a difficult choice or situation? No. But from a heavenly perspective, I do think there is always something good waiting for us on the other side of a hard situation or decision. God has never let me down once. My own experience has been that when one door closes, another usually opens even if it's way down the line. When I lost my best friend, God filled that hole with new friends that I would have never been close to if not for letting go of that one friend. Because of that one really hard decision I made, it forced me out of my comfort zone and there's so much more I've gotten to do this year than if that hadn't happened. God's timing is perfect and everything always works out according to His plans even if it's not the timing we were hoping for. 

So, no matter what your circumstances are right now, whether good or bad, God is in them. Even if you don't feel Him or see Him, He is there and He is sovereign and He will get you through wherever you are.