When something difficult happens in your life, are you ever tempted to ask, “What good could come out of this?” The event looks like a disaster. It feels like a disaster. Therefore, we quickly conclude, it is a disaster! But God did not forget His people who were suffering in Babylon. And, my friend, He won’t forget you! 

Too many times in the past I’ve told others “I’m fine” in order to hide my pain and sorrows from them. The truth is, my thoughts pulled me down so far that, in private, tears regularly streamed down my face. Are you constantly thinking negative thoughts? Being a woman after God’s own heart is all about “minding your mind.”

As a young mother, I endeavored to “train a child in the way he should go,” so that “when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). A decade later, however, I wasn’t reaping the results I had expected. Angrily, I said to God, “But this isn’t the way it was supposed to be! This isn’t the way it went for this family here or that family over there. And this isn’t the way it was supposed to be for my family!”