God is good, even when life is hard

The phrase, “God is good,” is used all around the world. To some it gives hope, but to others, it is just a flippant phrase. I have come to see that simply saying, “God is good,” and truly believing it and letting it affect my life are two different things. For me, the journey of going from simply knowing that God is good to really, truly believing it began seven years ago.

Sometimes the phrase, “God is good,” gets tossed around and loses its significance. But when people hear the story of someone who has lived through sorrow and hardship and still says, “God is good,” the phrase holds more weight. God has given me the ability to say this phrase with the weight of my story attached to it. I have experienced heart-wrenching loss and harsh physical suffering. To this day, I deal with physical pain on a daily basis. Yet my faith in God has not been shaken. My foundation in Christ remains strong. God is my Rock, and without Him I am nothing. If I would have walked through the heart-rending experiences recorded in this book without God, I would have become a poor, lost soul. Instead, I walked with my good God through all these hardships. He is my Father. I am His daughter, and He never left my side. On the days I truly knew God was good, I would smile and tell people about my good and gracious God. On the days when I was in so much pain that I could only see a glimpse of God’s goodness, I would tearfully look people in the eye and tell them, “Life is very hard, and God is still good.” Some days I struggled to truly believe that God really is good. On those hard days, I would repeat the phrase, “God is good,” over and over again to remind myself that it was still true, even if I couldn’t feel it at the moment.

I never really understood the comfort and power available to me in the Bible until the events of this book. Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” Through these recorded events in my life, God has guided me, broken me, humbled me, and matured me. All I ask is that you read my story with an open mind. It is my hope that you begin to learn, without a shadow of a doubt, that God takes care of those who put their hope in Him. I have learned I cannot live my life by wanting to do things my way. Life is not about me. It is not about my plans, or what I want to do. Just like the Proverb says, if I commit my way to God, my plans will be established. However, they won’t be my plans. They will be God’s plans for my life because I have committed my plans to His care.

You will notice I placed Bible verses at the beginning of every chapter. I also have Bible verses scattered throughout the book. I realize that’s a lot of Scripture. But this is my story, and my faith in God and the Bible is a huge part of my story. My faith is what got me through the difficulties and hardships. It’s part of who I am as a person. If I were to take away my faith, I would no longer be the person I truly am. Many of these chosen verses were the ones that encouraged and helped me during the trials I faced. My hope is that they will encourage you as well. Most of the verses are from the English Standard Version (ESV) Bible translation. There are some from the New International Version (NIV) translation, and I have made those notations.

So with a humble heart, I begin a hard story of many tears yet much laughter. I am about to tell you my story and the story of Stephen Reynolds. It might not be the story you expect. It certainly wasn’t what I expected. This is the journey that taught me to say, without hesitation, “God is good!”

We all have a story to tell, and this is mine. A story of God’s goodness.