What if we could actually get to the place where we thanked God for letting us face this battle because of the rich treasures we discovered on the battlefield?

We'll tell you all about our broken places of yesterday but don't dare admit the limitations of our today.

Don't miss this point—though the famine phase is hard, it does not have to be void of joy. Look for the joy. It is there. Answered prayers, treasures of wisdom, and the peace of God's provision are waiting for you in this phase. Depending on God brings such joy as I would never know any other way.

We must invite God into our pain to help us survive the desperate in-between.

C. S. Lewis said it best: "We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

If I want His promises, I have to trust His process. I have to trust that first comes the dust, and then comes the making of something even better with us. God isn't ever going to forsake you, but He will go to great lengths to remake you. What if disappointment is really the exact appointment your soul needs to radically encounter God?

If we don't open up a way to process our disappointments, we'll be tempted to let Satan rewrite God's love story as a negative narrative, leaving us more than slightly suspicious of our Creator.

I can face things out of my control without acting out of control.

We see that all those harsh realities aren't the end, but rather a temporary middle space. Not the place where we are meant to wallow and dwell. Rather the place through which we will have to learn to wrestle well.

I'm not equipped to handle what she has, both good and bad--and what she has is always a package deal of both.

Even amid hardship, trials, and things that don't go the way we want them to, we can find something to be joyful about.

Grace doesn't give me a free pass to act out how I feel, with no regard to His commands. Rather, His grace gives me consolation in the moment, with a challenge to learn from this situation and become more mature in the future.