For every season of life I have walked through, or am walking through currently, I have come to realize there is no perfect formula on how to ensure that everything comes out perfect or that I come through without experiencing heart break or pain. Marriage, divorce, weight gain (I’m a girl so you know it had to make the list), parenting, grief, widowhood…every season I’ve walked through I’ve read book after book. Scripture after scripture. And you know what? I have discovered that there is no perfect formula that guarantees each chapter of my life reads like I would write it if I held the pen. If there was a formula or check list we could follow for every chapter to only be filled with happiness, growth (but not my waistline), success, passionate filled marriages, spiritual growth, perfect children and all those details we want our lives to include, wouldn’t we all be following those steps? Wouldn’t there be story after story of lives filled with all that is good, beautiful and shiny? I know mine would selfishly be.

The reality is there is no perfect formula. There is no instruction manual. But there is a Sovereign God and His infallible word that He has left for us to cling to in every season. And one of the most powerful, yet beautiful truths I have learned through these past few years, is that I have to choose to seek, listen and walk with my Savior to know what I am supposed to do (or not do!) in each and every situation. I am called to have an intimate relationship with The One who will show me the way even on the darkest of nights. If there was a simple “cookie cutter” answer I wouldn’t need to seek Him in prayer or spend so much time soaking in His word to find Him. Find healing. Find hope. Find joy. Find whatever I need or am lacking of in that given moment…He is the one thing that meets them all!

No there’s not a check list we can follow to make sure we avoid every pot hole, valley or storm but my God is enough, even if that thing you fear most is written into your story. He is enough even when your parenting is lacking and your child has lost their way. He is enough even if they walk out on you. He is enough even if your Goliath walks into the doctors office with that diagnosis. He is enough even if He doesn’t heal him. He is enough even if it seems as though your whole world is falling a part around you. He is enough! I can honestly say I am grateful that He isn’t letting me write my story because I never would have truly known He was unless I had walked through each of those messy, painful, gut wrenching moments to allow Him to write the most beautiful love story I’ve ever known…the story of a totally surrendered girl that has fallen head over heels in love with The Lover of her soul! And I pray I will lean into Him each and every day until my faith becomes my sight, knowing and trusting that He is enough, even if…

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; And hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” -Romans‬ ‭5:1-3