How God Works

Nicodemus answered and said to him, "How can this happen?"// John 3:9

We exchanged glances after reading the text messages together. My sister rubbed my back while I rubbed my face. His messages were arrows piercing my little law student heart and tearing out hunks of it. Our "let's take a break from dating" summer had turned into a "you could never be my wife" fall. My sister had weathered her own breakups and reassured me that day and the many following, "This is actually a good thing."

I kept on needing to hear that, to try to believe that being alone was better than being with the wrong person. But the idea of God as replacement company was pretty ambiguous and so I sat in sadness, darkness, and deep doubt of my worth for a long time.

How do life-bending breakups, bank-account-stopping job losses, confusion-laced vocation discernments work out? How can the wild Holy Spirit move in the circumstances of our lives, when we cooperate with His grace and sometimes when we don't even know it's there, and heal and guide our hearts? Like sweet Nicodemus who doesn't understand what on earth Jesus is talking about, you've been there, I've been there. How does God work?

Just as my breakup was actually a huge blessing because I was spared marrying the wrong person for me, God's working with the disaster in front of you. The grinding anxiety, the misunderstood understandings, the Sisyphean tasks of the day are all important to Him. How can He help? How can this happen?

Ask Him to come in, dear sister. Ask Jesus to pour out His Spirit for you. Ask to open the eyes of your heart. He is here already.

He is here already. // Nell O'Leary Click to tweet

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