Bad is bad, except for when it is good.

Good is good.

Bad is bad.

Right?

When life is good and goes as I hope, dream, or plan, I deeply breathe in the goodness and I smile. I effortlessly see the beauty of God’s divine sovereignty.

When life is bad and I struggle, when I face trials that seem to drag on longer than they should (Whoever said trials have a prescribed duration anyway?), when I am mocked for my beliefs, when I’m rejected or ignored, or when life goes continuously contrary to the way I hope, dream, or plan… then what is my response?

I don’t know about you, but my first response to continuous calamity and rejection isn’t peaceful surrender and endurance. My first response is always to build a wall of defense, perhaps to even go on the offense.

Who hasn’t heard of the old adage, “the best defense is a good offense?”

Something else I do to respond to hardship: I quickly begin to seek the purpose so I can alter what is uncomfortable and transform it into comfortable.

My loving and faithful friends, because of their devotion to me and my children, join me in seeking the purpose. They want to see the struggle end, too. We collectively shake our heads ponder why the simple has morphed into the difficult, why the predictable has become unpredictable, or why the comfortable is peeled away to unveil the uncomfortable.

Often, the comfort in the struggle is that there are loving people surrounding us and cheering us on. But the longer the struggle endures, many cheerleaders get distracted. They are cheering for the struggle to end, but when circumstances go from bad to worse and even comical, if not for it being so uncomfortable, their own sense of timing has them refiguring their answers to “Why?”

Things should be turning around about now, right?

As the trial endures, some cheerleaders even fade away.

Recently, the good-is-good life has morphed into the bad-is-bad life and it has endured long past when I thought it would end.

When my current landlord said he wanted to sell the house we are living in and graciously gave me 60 days to find a new home (instead of the customary 30-day notice), my knees did not buckle.

True, this move meant I would be searching for a new home, packing, and resettling as a single momma with six (6!) children, but I wasn’t worried. After all, I had been hoping for and praying about a move for over a year. I just hadn’t been actively looking. I’d been waiting on God and living life in the present while dreaming of the future.

This notice to move was the nudge I needed to find a new home for us… a home that was more fitting for my Big Dream of working the Land of Potential with my children, having chickens and eventually some goats, and inviting other single foster and adoptive mommies to spend weekend retreats with us while their fatherless children learned skills not easily learned in the suburbs.

There was no doubt in my mind that this was God’s time for the dream to become a reality.

By faith, I purchased seven laying hens and their coop from a friend whose life no longer accommodated keeping them. I just knew God would open the door to a piece of land (a.k.a ‘horse property’) where our newly acquired hens, as well as my children and I, would call home.

I figured that we would move into our new home and onto this Land of Potential somewhere around Week 6 of the 8 weeks given to me to move, leaving 2 weeks to clean the newly vacated house and turn it over to my former landlord.

Then, my children and I would direct our focus into settling into our new home and… yah, live happily ever after. (I never even watched Disney movies when I was a kid, but that phrase is pretty hard to ignore in our society.)

Cue mounting praise music of exultation!

homesteads by LostCreekAcres from pinterest

I liked the plan. My faithful friends liked the plan. The plan was conceived with pure motives. (Read: not selfish gain.) Surely God was already on board with the timing of this Big Dream becoming a reality. It was obvious to me that HE had planted the dream because, um, I’m not a chicken person OR goat person; at least I wasn’t until this Big Dream descended upon me.

Maybe because my sons are football fans and it’s football season right, now… I viewed myself as something of a quarterback and this move would be a well-executed play for the SCORE! Read: Move onto some acreage, raise farm animals, plant gardens, fill those gardens with children working together and whistling while they work.

Cue confetti! (Hmm, football analogies and Disney-isms in one paragraph, somebody throw a penalty flag, please!)

After much searching online, fielding listings from three realtors, viewing many (MANY!) vacant and not-so-vacant rentals, and driving through potential neighborhoods looking for the ever-elusive “for rent by owner” signs with ALL seven us in the van (I homeschool so we always travel en mass), and sipping on Sonic’s Happy Hour Slurpees, I wasn’t discouraged in the least. We were actually having fun and the anticipation of what big thing God was going to do was the carrot I needed to keep me energized.

Like clockwork, Week 6 yielded a listing for a house on an acre lot. INSTANTLY I knew it was to be ours. Excitedly, we toured the house and property. Easily I pictured us living life there and having friends join us in the journey. For a few days, I breathed in the anticipation and said a happy farewell to online rental property searches.

Ellington Farm’s Pea Garden, photo by Josiah Rice.

Then, the call came that the homeowner rejected us in favor of a smaller family. The celebration balloon burst.

With more tears than I expected to shed, I turned my attention back to the search, but this time, my heart lacked excitement. The sorrow I felt was deep and my weary mind needed a break. My cheerleaders encouraged me that whatever God had would surely be more amazing and more perfect than we could even imagine and that the perfect home was just around the corner waiting for us. But…

Somebody throw a penalty flag, PLEEZE!

We are in Week 9 (N-I-N-E!!) and according to my plan of implementing God’s plan, we should be well on our way to settling into our amazing new home, gazing out the kitchen windows out at the pastoral Land of Potential just in time to invite several single foster mommas and their children to our home for Thanksgiving.

But we’re not. Another Penalty Flag flies to the field!

Instead, we are still in our soon-to-be (or not-soon-to-be) former rental. We are surrounded by packed boxes, navigating around mounds of packing material waiting for last-minute packing, consuming high-sodium, high-fat, fast food and pre-cooked food from Costco, receiving generous meal offerings from friends, eating off paper plates, and wondering if that box over there should be unpacked so we can make use of what’s inside.

Somewhere along the line, the cheers have grown quieter for this momma quarterback to SCORE.

The struggle is longer than any of us expected. I am forced to sell my already beloved chickens because it is obvious that this is not God’s time. Every time a homeowner of a possible rental agrees that the chickens can come with us, the deal falls apart for reasons that boggle my mind every time. How can it be that I cannot find just the right place for me, six children, and seven chickens. Is that such a tall order? (Apparently.)

So, as the cheers quiet and I turn inward and as all hope for the Big Dream to come to fruition any time soon is gone, I can hear Jesus nudging me to respond according to His instruction . . .

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5: 1-5, emphasis mine.)

Exult: take delight in, joyful, triumphant.

Tribulation: hardship, great difficulty, affliction, or distress.

Perseverance: determined continuation with something: steady and continued action or belief, usually over a long period and especially despite difficulties or setbacks.

If you have time, re-read the above passage and replace the words in bold with their accompanying definitions. I did it and the truth packed into those five verses finally hit home for me.

Here’s a paraphrase for those of you still hanging in there with me.

“…Take triumphant joy in distress knowing this hardship will bring about determined continuation yielding a proven character that will not disappoint….”

For all my friends cheering me on that something amazing is just around the corner, you were right! Not in the form of an amazing home situated on the Land of Potential, but a far greater gift from God: the hardship in this season will yield a proven character that will not disappoint.

Look around. Read the news. Listen to the drums beating. Our society is morphing into something most of us won’t like. It will buckle our knees. I know I don’t like it. And yet, I have been created by God for “such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14)

I want to be boldly ready with enduring perseverance. I want my kids to be ready if they find themselves apart from me through no choice of my own.

So today, I see that bad is bad, except for when it is good. Although I still don’t know where we are going to live or when we will actually move, although my knee is still swollen from taking a terrible fall last week and both of the twins are sick and running a fever, although I have no energy left to go look for a home and I want to run away, I stand firm knowing God is with me.

I choose today to take triumphant joy in this distress as I press forward in determined continuation for the fruit of proven character that God has promised to me through peace with Him through Jesus Christ. I know, it’s a mouth full, but it’s truth!

Seeds of Faith

After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.” 1 Peter 5:10

Copyright © 2014 Deborah Rice, PeaPodFamilyPress