By Lisa S. Tarno

I’m reading the fascinating story of Genesis again. My favorite out of the book is Joseph’s story. I’m drawn to the stories of people with great resilience and overcoming ridiculous odds. Joseph was one such story! It’s coming to a close and I was focusing on his relationship with his father, Jacob, at the end of Genesis. “Then Jacob said to Joseph, ‘I never thought I would see your face again, but now God has let me see your children, too!’” Gen 48:11 NLT

A LOT had transpired up until this point. If you don’t know the story, read it in Genesis 37-50. Jacob had been mourning the supposed death of Joseph for years after the evil conspiracy of his older brothers selling him off to slavery and lying to their father about what happened. Joseph was the beloved son from the only woman Jacob wanted to be with, Rachel, and it caused animosity in the family by the favoritism. Life seemed bleak for Jacob after this all occurred. It seemed hopeless.

The NLT commentary reads, “Circumstances are never so bad that they are beyond God’s help. Jacob regained his son… We need never despair because we belong to a loving God. We don’t yet know what good he may bring out of a seemingly hopeless situation.” This inspired me to think deeply. My reflection was writing, “At this point in life, after living much, I have had experiences that testify to this commentary. God has been faithful in my life to provide…to deliver…and even to redeem a plan gone terribly wrong! My God is amazing! It’s a reminder to me to not lose faith or sight of His track record just in my life alone!”

I even felt the need to share this with a friend who is going through a horrible ordeal right now to encourage her. Then I felt compelled to write a quick blog article to encourage YOU too! 

On the whole, it would serve us all well to REMEMBER the countless times God has come through for us in our lives. That’s not to say that some things went a little sideways at times, but He was and always is able to clean up the mess…to redeem our lives. It’s hard to have this perspective when we are smack dab in the middle of a new storm in our lives. We become terribly myopic. Our instinct is to brace ourselves for impact not discernment or perspective.

Too many times we struggle because we forget that God IS able to help us through whatever is happening currently in our lives. When a brief clearing of the clouds allows us to get a glimmer of perspective, how often have wrestled with “How long will this take to remedy?”, to “What lessons must I learn the hard way this time?”, to the ultimate doubt, “Does God even care?” This is when reading the Bible and seeing other fallible humans stories from a bird’s eye view is beneficial to us. We don’t have the luxury of seeing the end of our stories from thirty thousand feet. This is where faith is developed and fortified!

This is all meant to grow our faith muscles! It’s easy to read others’ stories and see how it all works out and maybe even be a smidge judgmental of their postulations. Yet, we are no different. All of our lives is our own story of lessons and insights meant to prosper and grow us, if we align ourselves with God. The stuff God is after in all of us is growing our faith which will serve us well in all of life. He will use any teaching tool necessary to achieve this goal.

My prayer is to remember all of my life is a testimony of God’s love and faithfulness…even in the storms of life!  That’s why I keep a praise box. I literally write down answered prayers every month of the year on post it notes and put in a pretty box I call my praise box. Then around Thanksgiving time I open the box and read all the post it notes and remember God’s provision and protection for me and my family. I used to read it to my small kids as they were growing up so they could see that God does care and does answer our prayers! It was meant to grow their little faith muscles too. 

We tend to forget once the storm passes…

It would benefit us to remember!