Ep 247 Trusting God When You've Hit a Brick Wall (or Your Friend Has) with Sue Donaldson

This is story of a godly woman who needed an invitation to a less-than-perfect home. She hit a brick wall. She trusted God. She didn’t like to eat alone. I trusted God alongside of her and invited her for dinner.

 

John met Katy when they were both in their teens. They married young, barely out of school. They planned their dreams and lived out their lives. It was to be a forever marriage, marked with the usual passages of home, kids, dogs, career changes, and health challenges. Then, a month before their 40th wedding anniversary, John packed up and left. After so many years of day-in and day-out living and planning and dreaming, off he went to live and plan and dream somewhere else, with someone else.

Katy hit a wall, brick as it turned out, and not of her own making.

Do you know someone who has hit a wall and it's a brick one? Maybe that someone is you.

Here’s the deal. We most often can’t change a person’s big hurt. We can’t bring the husband back or the prodigal home. Our powers of influence can’t force a boss to come to their senses or bring a child back to life. Those brick walls remain out of our control. To remember this truth is important. We are not God. It’s not my job to be someone’s Savior.

Hear Katy's story today. God may be leading you into deeper trust and that trust may lead you to invite someone over even if your home is less than perfect.

Some gems from today's story:

• Brick walls come in different shapes and sizes, comprised of the all too familiar elements of broken loyalty, dissimulation, gaslighting, betrayal.
• Nothing stings more than when someone you love betrays you. It’s personal. It hurts. Jesus was human as well as God. He knew this was coming. He came for this purpose—to die for our sins. But still, it hurt.
• We most often can’t change a person’s big hurt. We can’t bring the husband back or the prodigal home. We are not God. It’s not my job to be someone’s Savior.
• Divorce and death don’t place favorites and loneliness is its own disease.
• I can't heal a broken heart. I can’t patch up what needs patching. But I can offer a plate of spaghetti carbonara and a cozy remade tablecloth-turned-heating pad and usher someone to the table where Jesus is already seated and waiting to heal and patch and give all manner of hope.

Who do you know who has hit a brick wall? They need to know they are not alone.

We’re created for relationship, with God and with one another. Not because life becomes perfect when we have both God and community.  No, it’s because most days, life isn’t perfect. And remembering we are loved and never alone is what gets us through those days.