What God gives when He takes away

When something or someone is taken from you, you may feel a season of loneliness and confusion. I know I did. I questioned why God would take away someone who brought me so much joy and who I loved so much. It didn’t make sense.

I still chose to seek out Christ and know that He had far better for my life, even though some days it seemed almost impossible to believe. I know I serve a good God, and He won’t take something or someone away without the intention of replacing it/them with something better.

This doesn’t even mean God promises exactly what we want, or for me another boyfriend right away. What I mean is when God took away someone who I originally saw my whole future with, He replaced that guy and the hurt I felt with peace, hope, assurance and joy.

Peace! I remember when I was going through the initial heartbreak and the pain I felt, I longed for peace. I wanted to just be back to normal again and remember looking around and envying people who could truly laugh and smile and feel any happiness at all. I know a lot of people have had their heart broken and gotten through it, but somehow I still felt like the only one and Satan deceived me into thinking I would never get through it, and I would feel the way I felt forever. I felt so discouraged.

Even in these times, I was actively pursuing the Lord and wanted to hear from Him and what He had to say through my pain. I needed to trust His words over any lie Satan was trying to feed me. I would have horrible, break-down-and-cry moments, and then minutes later as I was seeking out truth from God’s Word or a message I was listening to, I would feel a wave of peace consume me.

This peace I felt was not because my circumstances were good by any means. The peace could only be from God, because it made no sense why I would be feeling such a peace through the hardest time of my life. The verse Philippians 4:6-7 says, “6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The peace I experienced surpassed my own understanding.

The peace that Jesus has brought me through a time of hurt and disappointment is amazing, and I would take being sad and feeling the peace that Jesus supplies, over being happy and never experiencing this type of peace.

Hope! I felt hope in a lot of different areas. I had hope that Jesus was going to use my pain for my good and His glory. I had hope that He was going to make this one of the best times of my life spiritually. I had hope that one day God would bring me a man who would love me unconditionally and lead me like God calls Him to lead me.

I also had a greater hope that Jesus is coming again, and it made my ties to this world even looser. It caused me to want to see Jesus face to face and experience Heaven even more! No more pain, no more suffering.

Assurance! When we first broke up, I clung to Christ. I knew I needed Him and couldn’t get through something so painful without Jesus and His sweet words to encourage me that He loves me, He is always there for me and will never give up on me. It was a brutal time, but through it all my relationship with the Lord became the best it has ever been. Because of this, it gave me an amazing sense of assurance of my salvation.

You don’t see if someone is really saved when they praise God in the good times, but when life gets really hard, and they still praise God. Throughout the past six months, I have never wavered from saying God is good, and He remains faithful. This is not to say I’m amazing, because I could not have done any of this without Christ. It’s not me, but Christ in me. Through a time of trusting Him, and clinging to Him it made me on fire for Jesus and His Word, which gave me so much assurance of my salvation. Praise God for how He has worked in my life and proven to be so faithful!

Joy! Wow, joy was one of the things I struggled with the most. I wanted my joy back so bad, but I felt like Satan had robbed me of all joy, leaving me in a puddle of despair. When I went home for Thanksgiving, it was so difficult trying to feel the joy, and not let what had happened affect me, my family or my friends. Over time, through a lot of prayer asking God to renew in me a newfound joy, I slowly started to feel more and more joyful, despite my circumstance. I have more joy now than I did when I was dating this guy, and it’s become my joy comes from the Lord! Nehemiah 8:10 says “…for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

God is so good in restoring my heart and outweighing the bad with the good. He gave me so much more when He took away. God sees the big picture, and in his wisdom — which often initially doesn’t look like wisdom — he will bring all to right in the ways and at the times that will result in our experiencing the greatest joy possible. God knew what He was doing when He took away, and now I do too. He gave me peace, hope, assurance and joy. I wouldn’t change a thing that happened to me, because of what it has produced in me!

Have you ever experienced a time of confusion where you didn’t understand what God was doing, but now looking back you see how He worked it out for good in your life?