I don’t know about you, but my heart easily gets out of tune. We’ve been in a long season of God doing something, but we’re not sure what. I don’t know when or how it will all end. Sometimes discouragement sets in. Self-pity. Hopelessness. Distraction. Sometimes I want to talk to God; sometimes I blame him for where we’re at. Sometimes I’m okay; sometimes I’m not.

Yesterday, I was reading Lysa Terkeurst’s It’s Not Supposed to be This Way,** and I was encouraged.

She writes, “And while I know in my head that God will somehow, someday turn all this around for good in my life, too, my heart isn’t so sure some moments. The intensity of the pain gives me a propensity to doubt.”

She suggests in these times when we’re wrestling with unbelief that “we just have to make the choice to see Him and rightly attribute to Him the good that does exist. I truly believe what keeps us on the path of longsuffering instead of veering off in the dangerous direction of wallowing is to wake up with great expectation of these little reminders of God’s goodness.”

Remembering God’s goodness is like regularly stopping to drink from a stream as you journey through the desert (Isaiah 43:19). It doesn’t take away the desert’s hardships, but it sustains you enough to keep going.

So yesterday I chose to count the goodness I could see:

the beautiful faces of my sweet girls

a little four-year-old hug around my thigh

the angled profile of my man

the original oil painting I splurged on last year

the warm spaghetti dinner the kids helped me make last night

the prayers and encouragement of my dear friend

Not much changed externally, but God again tuned my heart to sing his praise and fixed me firmly on his love.

I’ll need to be re-tuned again soon, I’m sure, but today I can keep going.

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