Who is God? What is the character of God? Wow. The questions that have ran through my mind as I tried to figure out what I should share about His character have overwhelmed me. How do I write in a few short words something that cannot be contained within the pages of the Bible? How do I explain the great mystery of God when I don’t even have a firm grasp on understanding it?

A few nights ago I opened my laptop to try to write on this topic, but quickly closed it again, unsure of how to write a blog entry on the character of God to a world of readers when I don’t fully understand Him myself. I couldn’t sleep that night, so I read through some of my journal entries over the past couple of years, just seeing if I wrote something that I could potentially turn into a blog post. There was no epiphany for a post; instead, I found a theme within my journals that I didn’t even realize I’d been clinging to and wrestling with in the past couple of years during the hardest times in my life. That theme was the goodness of God.

Now, please don’t shut me out if you are going through a hard season in life, and think I am going to use the next few paragraphs to write about how good He is and how easy life is due to His goodness. I am not; because it is not true, and I do not think it appropriately reflects the little I know of God’s character.

On New Year’s Day of 2023, I journaled that my phrase to focus on for the year was “God’s goodness.”  Seven months into the year, I felt like God was anything but good.

At the time, we were pastoring a successful church plant, starting to have financial breakthrough with investments and opportunities, and were finally putting roots down and feeling settled in our community. I was comfortable in my role as a pastor’s wife and my position on staff for the first time, and the kids were thriving in school and friendships. We were near all of our family and friends. Life should have been so good. But it was not. In the summer of 2023, some things started coming out about some very big struggles my husband was having–and the trajectory of our lives spiraled out of control very quickly. The enemy knew how to strike hard, and he did.

When my husband left at that time and started living an unrecognizable life, I got so angry. A Good God wouldn’t allow this to happen. Not to me, and not to the kids. It didn’t make sense that a good God would allow so much confusion and pain and brokenness to happen in our family, in our lives, in the lives of our community, and in the lives of the church. Before long, I could not go in a public place without everyone in the space knowing what battles we were facing. I was angry that our lives were the topic of every dinner conversation in our town. I was angry at John for making such poor decisions. I was angry that my kids overheard unsolicited advice and hurtful gossip. I was angry that the Church’s name was being dragged through the mud. I was angry that God was being mocked. I was angry that the enemy was winning.

I was so hurt and so angry for several months, but at the end of 2023 going into 2024 I was also starting to feel a softening in my heart towards God and towards John. Hope was rising. I was fasting and praying and crying out to God. I read over and over in my Bible about how God is a miracle-working God who redeems and restores, so I was praying for miracles and redemption and restoration–whatever that looked like at that time. I was working through forgiveness and bitterness, and focusing my prayers on God to reach John’s heart. I had renewed my faith, and I truly believed I would see the Lord’s goodness in our lives. So New Year’s Day of 2024, I wrote Psalms 27:13 in my journal as the verse I’d focus on for the year. It says, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

When I got the call that John had passed away just 3 short weeks after declaring that verse over our  lives, I got more angry. A Good God let the story end this way? I had worked through my anger and bitterness in the long months during the time between my husband’s leaving and his passing. I had finally relinquished it, and my husband, to God. My heart had softened in the few weeks before John passed, and I was praying so hard for God to miraculously move. At this point of the spiral I didn’t know what redemption and restoration would look like, but I believed God could do something miraculous that I couldn’t even imagine.  I was declaring life and living! Death wasn’t part of the plan, and when I got the final call that John was dead, it left me completely broken.

On one hand, I was broken for my family, for our kids, and for everyone who was believing for God to do a miracle. There was no longer hope for change. Death is final. With death brought closure, which also included a closed door to all hope.

On the other hand, I was even more broken because I no longer understood God. The God that I loved and served had disappointed me. He had broken my heart. He didn’t answer my prayers, nor my kids’ prayers, nor anyone else’s prayers. God’s character became completely foreign to me. And I felt more alone than I ever had in my life. Not only did I lose my spouse and my kids lost their dad in this tragic season, but I also lost the one sense of comfort I had–I lost trust in a good God. How could I trust Him? How could I believe in the goodness of God when all I felt was brokenness?

But, just because I was broken in my pursuit of Him did not break His pursuit of me. The Bible says in Psalm 34:18 that “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Although I was upset with Him, I also clung to Him. It is a contradiction of emotions that I cannot adequately explain. I was so hurt by Him, yet He felt so close to me.

I have so many stories of His tangible goodness showing up right when we needed it…

A few big bills came in, and a check arrived in the mail that covered the total amount.

The kids were upset because I had to cancel a trip to Breckenridge that John and I had booked the year prior, and then God led a family to send us on a free trip to Colorado without ever knowing the backstory.

Although church was hard to attend, it became our safe place and God provided some healing moments in the places that once hurt us the most.

I was in need of an income, and doors opened for temporary positions to hold me over while remaining on a schedule that worked for my kids until I figured out our next steps.

I spent many nights crying because my youngest child covered his ears when we’d pray at night. One day, an elderly lady whom I’ve never met called me and prayed with me specifically for my children to fall in love with the things of God. That same night, Foster asked me to pray with him for the first time in months.

Friends would give a word of encouragement in the moment I needed to hear something good.

I would get messages of prayers and prophetic dreams that were so on point that only God could have orchestrated them.

God was showing Himself so faithful in the small details of my life. During this time I reconciled a bit with God, acknowledging that He was close and He was saving me. I trusted Him again, knowing that I was not alone and believing that He was faithful. I just no longer believed He was good.

As life continued into September 2024, which was a little over a year into this “new normal,” I found myself broken again. I had just put the kids in bed, and I was walking through my home to lock up and clean up as I do every night before I go to bed. And I found myself crying, not out of anger or struggle, but just tears of brokenness because I found myself overwhelmed for the first time in a long time by the goodness of God. The kids and I had a great day together that day. There have been less and less days of sadness, and more and more joy-filled moments. We were in a beautiful house, making a new home here, and God had gone before us to bring such sweet friendships and opportunities our way. For the first time in over a year, I acknowledged again that God may indeed be good.

In the natural realm, sometimes God doesn’t seem good. Things happen that are painful and traumatic and downright hard in this life. In fact, He seems harsh and cruel because He didn’t prevent the hard from happening. He seems out of touch with His people and the world He created when tragedy, loss, and traumatic experiences happen. Why would a good God allow bad things to happen? Some believe it’s a test of faith, a consequence of free will, or a means to achieve spiritual growth, while others see it as a mystery beyond human comprehension.

In the spiritual realm, God is so good. God’s goodness is bigger than our finite minds can comprehend, and He will show His goodness in ways we cannot expect. Whatever the reason for the hard things we face in our lives, I now know without a doubt that we will not go through the hard times without a good God by our side. He will show His goodness to us if we allow Him to do so.

Almost two years into this journey now, I am back to declaring the goodness of God in the land of the living. Life is for living, and living well. God’s goodness in my life has overwhelmed me time and time again. God’s character is incomprehensible, and there are some things about Him and His ways that I will not understand this side of Heaven.

Even though I don’t understand and don’t have the answers, I can also look back in retrospect and see where He was good all along. He was with me all along. He was and is turning every hard thing into something that will help make Him famous on this earth. He is currently giving me so much joy and hope-filled expectation for an incredible future where He will redeem and restore a double-portion of what was taken from our family.

If you are going through a hard season, or have gone through a hard season in the past, or live life enough to go through a hard season in the future, I encourage you to cling to a good God in your hard thing. Allow Him space to work in your life on your behalf, even when you don’t feel Him working. Just because He doesn’t feel good; it doesn’t mean that He isn’t good. In fact, the more you wrestle with seeking His goodness, the more you will find it. God’s character is inherently GOOD.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.” -Psalm 34:8

God, I know that there are others reading this who wrestle in their belief and faith in You. They want to believe, but they also struggle to understand the vastness and mystery of your character. I pray that you open their eyes to see that You are in all the details of our lives, and You are working all things for our good and towards an intended purpose. I pray that you bring people into their lives that point them towards your goodness and your character, and that they discover more of your heart for them as they search you out. God, open their eyes and show yourself faithful in every area of their lives, and be with them in every hard thing. Thank you for your goodness.  In Jesus’ name, amen.