Before I started posting on the “Graduate Adventures,” I contributed to a separate blog. It was entitled “Living & Loving,” and each day (yes, every day) I shared a post ruminating on some aspect of life and love–my motivation most often coming from the Bible and inspirational quotes found online.

Well, today I felt I would do something less characteristic of “The Graduate Adventures” and instead pursue the mission of “Living & Loving.”

Ready for some thoughts and motivation? If so, keep scrolling.

“God is working in your life right now, in ways you cannot understand.”

“We can’t always see where the road leads, but God promises there’s something better up ahead. We just have to trust in Him.” 
(inspired by Psalm 56:3)

I had saved the above quotes on my “inspirational quotes” board on Pinterest a while back, and after reading them again, I realize how true these words are, and how tightly I must cling to them.

Ever since I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I have had questions–for the doctors, for myself, and for God. I have realized that I need to cut back on certain things that I have enjoyed because of the way my body reacts. I have wondered why God would have planned to give me this disorder, and why it was that I just discovered it.

Lately, I have been really thinking and praying about what my next steps are–not in relation to my health but to my life. What is it that I want to pursue now that some of those things I did pursue are no longer as feasible?

And as I have prayed, answers have emerged. Not surprisingly, the answers were vague. They were the quotes above.

I may not know exactly what God has in store for me, but I know that he has something different planned than what I have had planned along. I know he has something special in the making. You see, by trusting that this was all meant to happen and obeying his every Word, I am gaining confidence that God is working in my life in ways that I cannot understand and that he has something better for me up ahead.

And although I don’t know exactly what that may look like, I smile cheek to cheek knowing my Creator is the One in control of it all.

What are you going through right now? Something unexpected and unplanned? Perhaps. Something challenging and unfair? Perhaps.

But when we lean on God in these times and trust that it was all supposed to happen, this is when God sheds blessing on us. This is when God directs us toward our next steps–predictable or not.

If I could have predicted my life at high school graduation, I would have imagined myself as a journalist in Chicago, still able to run marathons, and perhaps still single.

But I trusted in God when he told me to take big steps, and instead, I have been led to where I am now.

I am a behavior therapist, living in Colorado, who will be married 8 months from today. I unfortunately see running another marathon as a near-impossible feat in my future, and I love the Lord with all my heart.

My life has not gone as expected, but it has gone better. And why would a disorder change that? You see, whatever you are going through right now is a passage to something better. You just need to believe it, but most importantly, believe in Him, and your life will never be the same.