Have you ever caught yourself saying, “I’m just going through a hard season?”
I know I have.
Over the past several months, I’ve noticed how easily I divide my life into two categories: good and hard.
If everything goes according to plan, it’s a good day. If people cancel, my schedule falls apart, dinner burns, or life feels heavy, it’s a hard day.
Maybe you can relate.
For some of us, “hard” means interrupted plans or unmet expectations. For others, it means something much deeper. A broken relationship. An eating disorder that seems impossible to overcome. Anxiety that won’t quiet down. A frightening diagnosis. The death of someone you love. Questions without answers.
When life hurts, it is natural to ask, Where is God? Why is this happening? Why me?
For a long time, I unknowingly believed that “good” and “hard” were opposites. A good day meant everything went my way. A hard day meant everything was falling apart.
But recently, God has been gently teaching me something that has changed the way I see my days.
Good and hard are not opposites. They often exist together.
That realization has brought more freedom than I expected.
We Often Measure Our Lives By Our Circumstances
If I’m honest, I often evaluate the quality of my day by how comfortable it feels.
Did everything go according to plan?
Did people respond the way I hoped?
Did I accomplish everything on my to-do list?
Did life feel manageable?
When the answer is yes, I tend to call it a good day.
But when plans change, people disappoint me, or life feels out of control, I quickly label it a hard day.
The problem isn’t that difficult things happen.
The problem is that I often allow my circumstances to determine my perspective.
I suspect I’m not alone.
Many of us spend our lives believing peace will finally come when everything is under control. We tell ourselves:
When my body changes…
When my anxiety settles…
When this relationship is restored…
When life finally gets easier…
Then I’ll have peace.
But Jesus offers something far better than peace that depends on perfect circumstances.
He offers Himself.
I Had To Learn This The Hard Way
If I’m honest, this way of thinking showed up most clearly during my recovery from an eating disorder.
In those early days, I was convinced God was disappointed with me.
Surely this diagnosis wasn’t fitting for a “good Christian girl.”
I felt broken, ugly, hopeless, and stuck. More than anything, I believed it was my responsibility to pull myself out of the mess—to fix myself, get it together, and prove that I could overcome this struggle. Then, maybe then, God would look favourably on me again.
Oh, friends, how little I understood the depths of His grace.
I had forgotten—or perhaps had never fully grasped—that I had been saved by grace through faith. My identity as a beloved child of God was never based on what I had done. It was, and still is, entirely because of what Jesus accomplished at the cross (Titus 3:4–7).
I still remember the day a compassionate biblical counsellor looked at me and reminded me that God loved me right in the middle of the mess.
Not after I recovered.
Not after I had everything figured out.
Not after I proved I could change.
Right there.
For the first time in a long time, a small beam of hope began to flicker.
I realized I couldn’t clean up my life apart from Christ—and the beautiful truth was that I didn’t have to. He wasn’t waiting for me to become worthy of His love. His grace was already reaching toward me.
Recovery was not quick. It was a long journey of learning to trust God’s goodness one day at a time. As I surrendered my plans, my striving, and my desperate attempts to stay in control, He faithfully led me into greater freedom and joy than I could ever have imagined.
Looking back now, I can see that those years were both incredibly hard and profoundly good.
Not because the circumstances were easy, but because God was there.
He was patiently revealing His goodness to me in the very place where I was convinced He had abandoned me.
“I wasn’t healed because God finally loved me. I began to heal because I finally believed that, in Christ, He already did.”
The One Thing That Is Necessary
In Luke 10, Jesus gently reminded Martha that only “one thing is necessary.”
I’ve been thinking about that a lot.
Life changes constantly. Circumstances can shift in a single phone call. The things we try so hard to control rarely stay under our control for very long.
But Jesus never changes.
When I remember who God is—His goodness, His faithfulness, His steadfast love—I begin to see my circumstances differently.
Oswald Chambers wrote, “What we believe about God determines everything about us.”
I have found that to be profoundly true.
When I remember what Christ has done for me, who I once was apart from Him, and the grace He has lavished upon me, my perspective changes.
Every breath becomes a gift.
Every ordinary day becomes evidence of His kindness.
The Cross Reminds Us Good And Hard Can Exist Together
Perhaps nowhere do we see this more clearly than at the cross.
Good Friday was unimaginably hard.
The Son of God suffered.
He was rejected, mocked, beaten, and crucified.
Yet through that suffering came the greatest good the world has ever known—our redemption.
The hardest moment in history became the doorway to the greatest hope.
If suffering and God’s goodness could exist together at the cross, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that joy and sorrow often coexist in our own lives.
Knowing God Changes Everything
For the past several months, one phrase from Daniel has stayed close to my heart.
“The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” (Daniel 11:32b)
Notice what Daniel doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say the people whose circumstances improve will stand firm.
He doesn’t say the people whose prayers are answered exactly as they hoped will stand firm.
He says the people who know their God.
That word know speaks of more than simply knowing facts about God. It speaks of knowing Him personally—walking with Him, trusting Him, experiencing His faithfulness through every season.
We come to know Him through His Word, where He continually reveals His character, and through faithfully walking with Him day after day.
As we know Him more deeply, our confidence grows—not because life becomes easier, but because we know the One who never changes.
Isaiah 43 reminds us that when we pass through deep waters, He is with us.
Notice He doesn’t promise we’ll never enter the waters.
He promises His presence in them.
Looking Through The Lens Of God’s Character
One sentence has been quietly reshaping my thinking:
Don’t interpret God’s character through your circumstances. Interpret your circumstances through God’s character.
That changes everything.
People may cancel, and my day is still good because my God is with me.
Someone may forget to keep a promise—or I may fail to keep mine—and yet I remain deeply loved by my Saviour.
Someone I love may die suddenly, and yet there is still hope.
Someone I care about may receive a devastating diagnosis, and yet I know God will faithfully sustain them through every step of the journey.
Hard doesn’t erase good.
Because God is still good.
A Gentle Reminder For Today
Maybe today feels incredibly hard.
Maybe you’re exhausted from trying to hold everything together.
Maybe you’re battling shame over your body, your past, or your failures.
Maybe grief has settled into your home.
Whatever your “hard” looks like today, don’t mistake it for the absence of God’s goodness.
Good and hard can exist together because God Himself is present in both.
One day our Good Shepherd will return.
He will wipe away every tear.
He will make all things new (Revelation 21:5).
Until then, may we become people who know our God—people whose confidence is not built upon comfortable circumstances, but upon the unchanging character of the One who is always good.
Because no matter how hard today may feel, He who is good is still the One who is in control.
Friend, if you’re walking through a season that feels overwhelmingly hard, you don’t have to walk it alone. At Space For Grace, I have the privilege of walking alongside Christian women as they discover the freedom, hope, and identity that are theirs in Christ. If you’d like someone to journey with you, I’d love to connect with you. Click here to connect with me.
Grace and peace,
Rebecca
Space For Grace – Changing the Way You See You