When Your Life Falls Apart

By: Kaitlyn Boggs

Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you.”

God has a crazy way of working, and this last post for the semester shows that. As I have said time and time again, it is necessary to be honest if we are going to do anything to help our brothers and sisters, so here is my open honesty from a place of brokenness. Here is God’s crazy way of working, bringing me to that place of brokenness so that I could share with you this experience and the importance of honesty one last time for the semester.

I feel like my world is falling apart. I realize that is a huge cliché, but that is exactly what it feels like. As all of you probably know by now (I apologize for bringing it up so much…), my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer last semester. This was a difficult time for me, but I don’t remember a time when I truly, completely broke down. I worried. I was confused. I cried. However, I never fell to my knees in complete desperation. I never felt overwhelmed by it because I could trust in God completely in the midst of the storm that was my life.

That calm shattered as I sat doing my homework Tuesday, I got a text from my mother asking if I could talk. I said yes, and a few seconds later she called. When I picked up the phone, I could tell something was wrong. We carried on a normal conversation for about a minute, and then she told me that she had gotten the results from her CT. She had three knots on her lung. Two were small, but the third was 4.3 millimeters. Trying to keep my composure, I asked what that meant.

There are a few things that you never want to hear in this world. One of them is the word cancer. For the second time in a year, I was given the explanation that they were not sure if it was cancerous or not, but there was a possibility. For the second time that year, I tried to keep my composure and trust in the midst of raging storms. For the second time that year, thoughts began to run through my head. Will I be in Canada when she has her last Mother’s Day? Will she make it to my graduation? Will she be here to plan my wedding? What if this is a year full of lasts?

I would like to think that I held it together pretty well while on the phone with her. I pushed all of those thoughts away until I was off of the phone. It was still all I could do not to cry when she told me that the knots hadn’t been there in December—that they had grown sometime between then and now. As I hung up the phone, I immediately began to sob as it all sank in. Here was my loving mother, the daughter of one of the greatest grandmother’s in the world, and I am looking at facing the reality of both of them having cancer. It was more than I could handle. Thousands of thoughts raced through my mind, each one making me cry more than the last. Around midnight, I was sitting in the floor of my dorm, trying my hardest to trust and know that everything was going to be okay. I struggled to pray, not because I didn't think He was listening, but because I couldn't seem to find the words. Instead, I just cried.

I share all of that with you, not to ask for your pity or to shine a spotlight on me and my reactions, but to focus all of our eyes on Christ once more as this semester ends. When your world feels like it is falling apart, when everything is going wrong, I hope you will remember what Jesus did for me, and what He will do for you in those desperate, broken moments that arise in life.

God doesn’t call us to be whole all the time. He doesn’t call us to be perfectly put together. He doesn’t call us to put on a pretty face and tell everyone everything is going fine. God calls us to be open and honest, not just with others, but with Him as well. God doesn’t call us to perfect prayers prayed from moments of serenity. He calls us to cry out to Him, even if all you are doing is crying. Because ladies, here is the thing about our wonderful, perfect, loving, amazing Savior—He cares for us. He listens to us, even when we have no words to say. My loving Savior sat beside me yesterday, giving me His comfort and peace in the midst of a crumbling world. As that peace settled in, I was able to finally look up. On the wall of my dorm is a simple verse that God spoke through. Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your burdens upon the Lord and He will sustain you.”

There is one person who can always handle my broken mess, and that is the Lord. Not only did He take the burden from me that night, but he sustains me every moment from then on. He gently reminds me when I begin to feel anger rising up that He is still in control. He lovingly tells me that it is okay to be emotional about this, but that I need to trust in His plan. He mercifully forgives me when I begin to get in my flesh and think about the negatives of this situation. He kindly teaches me to remember the positive things that He has done for me and the millions of situations that felt like the world is ending. Because in every one of those situations, He caused them to turn out to be a way to glorify Him.

Ladies, if you ever get to a place where it feels like your world is falling apart, remember that our God is not a passive God, sitting back and watching. Nor is He a God who wills disasters to happen so that He can enjoy watching us suffer. Our God is a God full of love and compassion, one who waits patiently for us with open arms to come and rest in His peace and reassurance that no matter what our mind thinks, this too shall pass and it will all work out according to His plan. Our God is not surprised by our problems, and He does not leave us powerless to overcome.

Father, today I feel like my world is falling apart. I feel the news weighing heavy on my heart and the possibilities running rampant in my mind. But I know that you are God. I know that you are good. I know that you are working. Lord, I pray that you will give me peace to wait on the results and then peace to deal with whatever they are. Lord, I give you this burden of worry and fear, and I praise you because I know that you are able to work through this for my good and your glory. Amen.

This song is pretty much the life song that I hope to always sing in my life. "I know your able and I know you can save through the fire with your mighty hand, but even if you don't, my hope is you alone."

I pray that God blesses each of you with peace and wisdom as you go out into the summer. Have a fantastic week!