When healing doesn’t come the way we expect, when prayers aren’t answered in our time, our faith journey takes an unexpected turn.
I’ve written a great deal about my family’s journey through cancer and deployment, about finding joy in life’s hard places. But let’s be honest: my soldier’s return and my daughter’s cancer weren’t the fairy-tale ending I imagined. Instead, they ushered in a new chapter filled with therapy sessions, ongoing medical checkups, and the constant shadow of tomorrow’s uncertainties. They also brought the unexpected – survivor’s guilt and divorce.
I’m learning to find joy in this reality, not despite it.
When I talk about “finding joy in everyday moments,” it’s because I know firsthand how challenging that can be amid pain. Life isn’t clean. Happily-ever-afters aren’t endings at all, but rather continued journeys toward a new normal. The middle places of life are messy. It’s not happiness I seek anymore – it’s the ability to live authentically in these spaces where celebration and sorrow coexist, where new beginnings intertwine with lives well-lived.
The Myth of Guaranteed Healing
My children have experienced their own middle places.
Our hearts, years later, after the death of a young friend remain shattered. Our relationships ebb and flow as we learn to navigate the instability of our family and what it means to trust again. What once felt safe is now full of uncertainty. In this space, we have learned to ask confronting questions about faith, healing, and the nature of God himself.
“I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” -Isaiah 45:7
It’s easy to love a God who does what we want, to understand a deity who swoops down to tidy up our mess with miraculous healings and answered prayers. But that’s not the God of Scripture. Healing doesn’t always come. Prosperity and happiness aren’t guaranteed rewards for correct prayers or faithful tithing. Tidy faith crumbles in the face of tragedy.
In these raw moments, I find myself navigating new normals, searching for joy in both laughter-filled days and ones heavy with grief. My faith has deepened, paradoxically, even as my trust wavers. As we grappled with the loss of our friend– a healing we never even had time to pray for – I wanted to snatch the reins back from God and rewrite the story.
I long still for the fairy tale ending, for resurrection now, for one more glimpse of a smile I’ll never see again on this earth.
Finding Purpose When Healing Doesn’t Come
I’m finding a new normal. I’m searching for joy in everyday places, past the broken promises and broken dreams. Beyond the shattered marriage and graveside prayers.
Dana Portwood wrote in “Stumbling through Lent” that “Faith is a series of little deaths and rebirths, each one bringing us around closer to the center.” I’m clinging to this truth for my children, hoping that through tragedy they’ll discover a God who’s big enough to hold both their pain and their questions. I’m holding onto this truth myself, even when my heart wants to let go.
Trusting God When Healing Doesn’t Look Like We Expected
The profound beauty of life’s middle places is that God dwells there with us. Though He isn’t painting over our mess with picture-perfect solutions, He’s present – orchestrating both the pain and the promise. This is the God who said no to His only son’s plea to avoid the cross. The God who wraps His arms around us without turning away from our suffering. The God who wept at his friend’s grave.
Joy isn’t the absence of sorrow. It’s deeper and richer because of the pain we’ve walked through. Life is fuller because of those who walk through suffering with us.
Have you experienced times when healing didn’t come as expected? How did it shape your faith journey?