I’ll be honest… sometimes I read James 1:2 and think, “Joy? Really, God? In this? In the middle of heartbreak, bills piling up, a diagnosis, or when the people you love most let you down?”
Joy isn’t the first word that comes to mind when life feels like it’s falling apart.
But then I remember that James wasn’t talking about a fake smile plastered on our faces while we’re crumbling inside. He was pointing to something deeper. A steady anchor. A reminder that trials don’t mean God has abandoned us. They mean He’s shaping something in us 🙏perseverance, maturity, a faith that won’t collapse when the bottom falls out.
I think back to a season when I was barely holding on. I cried myself to sleep more nights than I want to admit. Everything I had planned unraveled. And yet, in the middle of it, God didn’t leave. He didn’t shame me for being weak. He met me in the mess, whispering hope where I thought there was none.
And little by little, joy showed up. Not because the pain disappeared but because I realized I wasn’t carrying it alone.
So if you’re in the fire right now, don’t feel like you have to fake it. God isn’t asking you to deny your pain. He’s asking you to trust that He’s still good in it. That the story isn’t over. That joy is being written in the margins of your struggle.
Because one day, you’ll look back and see 🙌you weren’t being broken. You were being built.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” James 1:2-3
Hold on.
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