This morning, I responded to a heartfelt email from a woman with a beautiful spirit but a broken heart. She’s a member of the Mental Health for Christian Women Membership Community, where she has access to regular personal email coaching from me. Her message was filled with questions about the nature of God in a world that often seems full of pain and suffering.
It became clear that the insights I shared with her might also resonate with you. While I won’t delve into the specifics of her situation, many of us grapple with understanding God’s role when faced with the harsh realities of life.
Here’s a summary of what I shared with her:
Understanding God Through the Lens of His Goodness
James 1:17 tells us, “Every good and perfect gift comes from God the Father.” When we question God’s nature and His protection amid suffering, it helps to remember that the best reflection of who He is can often be found within ourselves.
Consider the qualities in you that seek to protect, care, and love. The parts of you that hope for purity and strive to overcome pain—these are echoes of God’s nature. He is not the source of pain, destruction, or perversion. Instead, He is the one who comforts us and overcomes evil, both in this life and in Heaven.
God is constant—“the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). The evil we see in the world is not of Him, which is why it feels so foreign and distressing to us. God has made a way for us, defeating the enemy and ensuring that death has lost its sting (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
In struggles, remember that “crying may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). God walks with us through our battles, providing comfort, direction, strength, and hope that will never be cut off. He is not passive; He is the peace that surpasses understanding and the power over evil (Phillipians 4:7).
You can see God’s heart in your own desire to protect innocence and fight for good. The doubts, guilt, shame, fear, and pain are not from Him. Rather, He is actively pushing back the darkness that seeks to overtake His children.
I hope this message brings you comfort and perspective, just as I hoped it would for my virtual coaching friend.
If you would like to join the membership community, and get personal coaching like this in your email box to help you with your questions and goals, you can learn more, and sign-up : Clck Here
Takeaways:
- Reflect God’s Nature: When you struggle to understand God, look at the good and caring qualities within yourself as reflections of His nature.
- Embrace God’s Goodness: Remember that every good thing comes from God. He is the source of all that is pure and loving.
- Separate Evil from God: Understand that pain, destruction, and perversion are not from God. He is here to free us from these effects.
- Find Comfort in His Constancy: God remains the same throughout time. His promises and His nature are steadfast.
- Hold onto Hope: Even in difficult times, trust that joy will come and that God is with you during your trials.
- Recognize His Work in You: Your desire to protect and fight for good is a sign of God working through you.
- Push Back Darkness: Know that God is actively involved in combating the darkness in your life and in the world.
If you missed this week's podcast on a related topic, “Overcoming Religious Abuse and Cult Trauma - An Interview with Guest Liza Lovett, Part 1 of 2,” you can listen to it here.
In His Love,
Michelle
Michelle
Why a Mentor, Coach, or Therapist Can Help
Have you ever felt like the way you think of things seems right until other information comes along and gives you more clarity...shedding some light on the situation?
So, I had this experience recently. I was feeling pretty confident when I decided to run out for breakfast at McDonald's. I thought I'd just get a breakfast sandwich for myself and bring one back to be sweet to my husband on a recent Saturday. So, I did that, and I thought, oh, I can also go to the gym. I don't have anything planned. So, I'll get breakfast, drop one off for him, go to the gym and, oh, I didn't have my earbuds. So, I'll swap off the sandwich and then pick up my earbuds.
When I pulled into my car driveway, and we live in a very safe area, so I decided just to leave my drink in the cup holder, my phone on the dash, and leave the car unlocked because I was running quickly in and out and I would be right back.
The problem is, when I did that and started to head off towards the gym, my phone was gone, and my drink was gone, and I'm sitting there in the car going, what just happened? And so there were thoughts like, did someone steal from me? Are one of my kids playing a joke? Did I accidentally take it inside? Am I losing my mind? And I thought, well, I must have been just not paying attention that I took them inside. And so I'll just go inside and get it. And I went inside to look and there was no phone and there was no drink. And I had a distinct memory of leaving the phone on the dashboard and the drink in the cup holder. So at this point, it's like a Twilight zone kind of thing. It's feeling very surreal.
I'm not sure what's going on. Things are kind of topsy turvy within me because my logic is trying to figure something out. My emotional experience is feeling kind of discombobulated, and my husband didn't see my things either. However, even though I was confident that I had time to drive home, that I had time to swap out the sandwich and get the earbuds, that I had time and was turning around quickly so I could get back to the car so that I could have my stuff left in it and not have to carry it in with me, there was this piece of information that I was missing.
I had failed to consider that since my husband and I have the exact same make and model of cars, just different colors, that I had actually gotten into his car instead of mine. And the only way that I knew that is because he was trying to help me problem solve. And instead of being kind of flustered like I was, he was very calm and said my Bluetooth went off, and he said that I think that you tried to get into my car instead. Do you think that's what happened? Oh, actually, that makes a whole lot of sense.
I thought I was seeing everything clearly. I thought I calculated everything, thought I understood everything. And then I didn't understand why things weren't working, what got mixed up, and I couldn't understand not only why and what, but how. Like what happened? And with that one sentence, he was able to make so much sense of everything for me, just shining a light of clarity on my situation that I couldn't see for myself. And once he did, it sped up my progress. It got me into the car with my earbuds, going to the gym, had a nice workout, it was great. I was back on track. Better than ever, right?
That's what having a therapist or a coach or a mentor can do for you. They can see the things you can't because you're in the experience. Somebody who is trained from the outside to be able to hear and notice and ask intuitive questions, then explain things or offer tools that you may not know can speed up your clarity and your progress, saving you a lot of time, frustration, and that Twilight Zone kind of swirling.
