Today's Encouragement

Devastated but not Destroyed 

Lysa TerKeurst

“He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’” Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

I took my seat in the middle of the food court and was thankful I could hide my tears by staring down at my food. I quietly brushed my napkin across my cheek. I blinked. I tried desperately to swallow.


I'm not normally a mall-goer, but that day I needed a place to hide. A place to process. A place to remember that the whole world wasn't falling apart.

The news I'd received from just an hour earlier crushed me. And devastated me.

A friend I love made a decision I couldn't for the life of me understand. It wasn't in keeping with her character. It wasn't something I ever dreamed this person could do. The effects of this decision would careen across her life and mine with hard consequences.

Glancing at the table across from me, I saw two women a little younger than I am. They were laughing and cutting up food into bite-size pieces for their young kids. I could hear them talking about costumes that needed to be made for their upcoming preschool performance. One of them was having a hard time finding purple tights, and she desperately needed purple tights to make the costume complete.

I whispered under my breath, "I wish my biggest issue was purple tights." Although my whispered statement was lost in the chaotic chorus of food court voices and noises, the scream inside my heart hovered over me in deafening tones.

My mind raced. My throat tightened. My eyes leaked uncontrollably.

I tried to pray, but honestly, I felt like God was pretty distant at that moment.

It's hard to stand on the goodness of God when you feel like life has just been stripped of so much good.

It's in these moments where we know if the Word of God has seeped deep into our hearts or not. Though the world seemed to swirl and spin without anything for me to hold onto, one simple statement rose to the top of my mind and cut through with crystal clarity: "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10b).

I heard it over and over.

And I knew it wasn't my mind conjuring up this Bible verse. It was the Holy Spirit inside of me speaking. Reassuring. And quite honestly, holding me together when circumstances were literally tearing me apart.

I don't know what hard reality is crushing your heart right now. But I sense I'm not alone. The enemy is on a full-out attack against everything good, sacred, pure and honest. He is the father of lies who wants us to believe that if our circumstances fall apart, then so will we.

But take it from a woman who has walked through some of her own hard realities: Satan is a liar. God is a Redeemer. A Healer. The Author of hope. The Pathway of restoration. The great I AM.

Right this very minute, there are some things you and I must cling and hold to as if our lives depended on it:

1. God loves us and He will not leave us.
2. This battle isn't ours. The battle belongs to the Lord. Let Him fight for you. Save your emotional energy, and use it to dig into His Word like never before. Our job is to be obedient to God. God’s job is winning this battle.
3. The battle might not be easy or short-lived, but victory will be there for those who trust God.
4. God is good even when the circumstances are darker than you ever imagined. God is good even when people are not. God is good even when things seem hopeless. God is good and can be trusted when you feel suspicious of everyone and everything around you.
5. Lastly, God is good at being God. Don’t try to fix what He hasn’t assigned you to fix. Don’t try to manipulate or control or spend all your emotions trying to figure it out. Let Him be God. Free yourself from this impossible assignment.

Sweet friend, I'm praying for you. Let’s band together to declare that we Jesus girls may not have all the answers for our situations. But by God, we will stand in the midst of our hard days and declare we trust the One who holds every answer.

We will — be still — and know — HE IS GOD!