When Faith Meets Real Life
There are some things in life I would never have chosen. Divorce. Watching my sister Sara live with a disease that slowly took away so much of the life she once knew. Losing my dad. Cancer.
I wouldn’t choose any of them. And I certainly wouldn’t tell you that I walked through them perfectly.
I didn’t.
There were tears. Questions. Fear. Disappointment. I prayed, believing God could change the circumstances—and there were times He didn’t answer the way I desperately wanted Him to.
But looking back, I can see something I couldn’t always see while I was living it:
God was forming me in the middle of it.
We’ve been talking about walking with Jesus and letting our relationship with Him shape how we live. But formation sounds a little different when life gets hard, doesn’t it?
It’s one thing to say, “God, I trust You,” when the path in front of us makes sense. It’s another thing to say it when the doctor says cancer. Or when a marriage ends. When someone you love is suffering, and you can’t fix it. When you stand beside a grave. When you’ve prayed the same prayer for months—or years—and Heaven seems quiet.
That’s when what we say we believe begins to meet real life. And I think that’s where some of our deepest formation happens.
Not because suffering itself is good. Not because God expects us to smile through heartbreak and pretend we’re okay. But because the hard places reveal where we’re placing our trust.
When I was diagnosed with Stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer, life changed quickly.
Suddenly there were decisions to make, treatments to endure, and questions I couldn’t answer. Six months of chemotherapy. The “Red Devil.” Losing my hair. Radiation. Appointments. Side effects. Uncertainty.
And fear.
I had spent years encouraging other people to Choose Joy. Now I had to decide what those words meant when I didn’t feel joyful. I had questions for God.
Why is this happening?
Why now?
What is going to happen to me?
God, where are You in this?
I wish I could tell you I immediately responded with unwavering faith and never struggled. That wouldn’t be true. And maybe that’s important to say.
Faith isn’t the absence of fear. Trust isn’t the absence of questions. And joy isn’t the absence of sorrow.
I was learning all of that in real time.
Somewhere along that journey, however, my question began to change. Instead of only asking: “God, why is this happening to me?” I began asking: “God, what do You want me to learn here? What do You want to do in me? And how can You use me even here?”
My cancer hadn’t disappeared. The treatments hadn’t suddenly become easy. I still didn’t know exactly how the story would end. But something was changing. Me.
There is a difference between believing God caused every painful thing that happens and believing God can meet us in every painful thing that happens. I don’t believe we have to call suffering good to believe God is good. We don’t have to pretend the valley is beautiful. We don’t have to be thankful for cancer, divorce, disease, death or disappointment.
But we can trust that God will not waste the places we surrender to Him. He can meet us there. Teach us there. Strengthen us there. Reveal Himself to us there. And sometimes He uses those very places to help us see another person who is walking through something similar.
I’ve learned that letting go isn’t the same as giving up.
Sometimes letting go means releasing my demand to know how the story is going to turn out and placing the story back into God’s hands. That’s surrender. And surrender is part of formation.
My sister Sara understood this in a way few people I’ve known ever have.
Her physical world became smaller and smaller as disease took away so many things most of us take for granted. Yet this was how Sara described joy:
“The unwavering trust that God knows what He is doing and blessed me with the opportunity to be part of it. Not despite what is happening in my life, but because of it. When everything earthly feels heavy, He gives me an internal lightness that can’t be touched.”
Those words mean something different when you know what she was living through when she wrote them. Sara wasn’t pretending life wasn’t hard. She knew it was hard. She was learning to trust God inside the hard. And I think that’s an important distinction.
Because somewhere along the way, we can begin to think choosing joy means putting a smile on our face and declaring everything is fine. It doesn’t.
Joy isn’t pretending our circumstances are good. Joy is learning to trust the One who walks through them with us.
Psalm 23:4 says:
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”
I’ve been thinking about the word through. David doesn’t say there won’t be a valley. He doesn’t say God immediately removes him from it. He walks through it.
And the comfort isn’t found in understanding the valley. It’s found in these words:
“You are with me.”
Maybe that’s what discipleship looks like when faith meets real life. We seek Him there. We follow Him there. We abide in Him there. We choose joy there. And slowly, step after step, He forms us there.
Maybe your hard thing isn’t cancer. Maybe you’re waiting for an answer. Maybe someone you love is hurting. Maybe life has changed, and you’re still trying to figure out what the new normal looks like. Maybe you’re grieving something other people don’t even know you’ve lost. Maybe you’re disappointed with God, and you’re afraid you’re not supposed to admit that. Maybe you’ve prayed and prayed—and nothing seems to be happening.
I don’t have an easy answer for you.
And I’m not going to tell you that if you just have enough faith, everything will work out exactly the way you hope. Life has taught me otherwise.
But I can tell you this:
You do not have to walk through it alone.
The same God who met me in a chemotherapy chair was with me through divorce, grief, loss, and questions I couldn’t answer. And He’s still teaching me to walk with Him today.
Not perfectly. Sometimes confidently. Sometimes with shaky knees. Sometimes with joy. Sometimes with tears. But still walking. Still trusting. Still choosing. Still being formed.
As we continue this Walk With Me journey, we’re going to take discipleship into some very real places. We’re going to talk about suffering. Waiting. Disappointment. Uncertainty. Change. Unanswered prayer.
We aren’t going to rush through them or cover them with Christian clichés. Instead, we’re going to ask:
What does it look like to actually walk with Jesus here?
Because you may not get to choose everything you walk through. But you can choose Who you walk through it with.
So whatever you’re carrying today, you don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt. You don’t even have to know what the next ten steps look like. Take the next one. And don’t just get through it. Walk through it with Him.
What are you walking through right now that you wish God would simply take away?
Instead of only asking, “God, why?” try sitting with Him long enough to also ask:
“Lord, what do You want to show me about Yourself here? What are You forming in me as I walk through this with You?”
Then be still. You don’t need to manufacture an answer. Just stay with Him.
Adventure awaits — will you Choose Joy?
With love and joy,
Laura
