There are moments in life that change everything so quickly you don’t even have time to process what happened. One minute you’re making plans, worrying about bills, thinking about what needs to get done around the house, and going through your normal routine. Then something happens, and suddenly none of those things seem nearly as important as they did five minutes before.
I’ve had more than my fair share of shattered moments in life. There have been things I’ve shared openly here over the years and others that have taken me much longer to talk about. I’ve dealt with childhood trauma that followed me well into adulthood and affected my marriage. I’ve struggled with insecurities that took years to understand. I’ve watched relationships fall apart, made decisions I wish I could go back and change, struggled financially, lost my mother, and spent years rebuilding parts of myself I thought were gone forever.
Then there was my car accident in 2006.
For many years, I believed that accident had taken one of my biggest dreams away from me. I couldn’t see how the life I once imagined for myself could possibly happen anymore, so I learned new skills and found different ways to move forward. It took me years to realize that maybe the dream wasn’t actually dead. Maybe the road to getting there was simply going to look completely different than the one I had planned.
Now, twenty years later, another car accident has shaken our family.
On August 12th, my husband, Del, was T-boned and had to be airlifted to a hospital an hour away from us. What started as one terrifying phone call quickly became broken bones, internal injuries, countless scans, doctors, hospital rooms, and the realization that our normal life wasn’t going to be normal again for quite some time.
This happened during a season when we were already struggling financially and trying desperately to change that. We had just taken the risk of purchasing a second vehicle because we believed having it would give me more opportunities to earn additional income. Four days later, that vehicle was involved in an accident that could have taken my husband’s life.
Talk about having your plans shattered.
Where Is God in the Shattered Moments in Life?
I’d be lying if I told you I haven’t questioned things over the years. There have been plenty of times when I’ve wondered why God allowed something to happen. There have been prayers that weren’t answered the way I wanted them answered and seasons where I couldn’t understand what He was doing at all.
Yet, somehow, I still believe.
Psalm 34:18 tells us that “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.” Notice that Scripture doesn’t tell us believers won’t have broken hearts. It tells us God comes near when our hearts are broken.
That’s an important difference.
My faith has never promised me a life without pain. If anything, the Bible is filled with people who loved God and still endured incredibly difficult things. Joseph was betrayed by his own brothers. Job lost almost everything. David experienced tremendous grief and fear. Paul suffered repeatedly. Even Jesus experienced rejection, betrayal, suffering, and death.
So when my own life falls apart, I don’t take that as proof that God has abandoned me.
Isaiah 43:2 says, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.” Again, it doesn’t say we won’t go through the waters. It says He will be there when we do.
I’ve held onto that distinction through some of the hardest seasons of my life.
I Don’t Know What God Is Doing With This Yet
Romans 8:28 is probably one of the verses Christians hear most often during difficult times. It tells us that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
I believe that verse, but I also think we have to be careful with it.
When someone is sitting in a hospital room watching someone they love hurt, telling them everything happens for a reason can feel pretty empty. Right now, I can’t tell you the good that will come from Del’s accident because I don’t know yet. I don’t know what our finances are going to look like. I don’t know exactly how long his recovery will take. I don’t know what our lives will look like when we finally get to the other side of this.
But I’ve lived long enough to look backward at other shattered moments in my life and see things I couldn’t see while I was living through them.
I’ve seen lessons come from pain. I’ve seen relationships grow through difficult seasons. I’ve watched doors open that I never would have looked for if another door hadn’t slammed shut first. I’ve learned skills because circumstances forced me to find another way forward, and some of those very skills are now helping me chase a dream I once believed was gone forever.
That doesn’t mean I believe God caused every painful thing that’s happened to me. It means I believe He can still work through it.
There’s a big difference.
Shattered Doesn’t Mean Finished
Second Corinthians 4:8-9 says we can be troubled without being completely crushed, perplexed without giving in to despair, and knocked down without being destroyed. I can’t think of a better description of some seasons of my life.
I’ve been knocked down plenty of times.
Yet, I’m still here.
My marriage is still here. My family is still here. Sharing Life’s Moments is still here. That dream I’ve carried since I was 15 is still here, even after I spent years believing I had lost it.
And my faith is still here.
Maybe that’s what all these years have taught me about the shattered moments in life. Something being shattered doesn’t necessarily mean the story is over. Sometimes we’re standing among the pieces trying to understand how anything could possibly be put back together, while God can already see something we can’t.
I’m not going to tell you that I’m sitting here completely peaceful about everything happening in our lives right now because I’m not. I’m worried about my husband. I’m worried about his recovery. I’m worried about our finances and how we’re going to handle everything coming our way. There are moments when the size of it all feels incredibly overwhelming.
But faith isn’t pretending I’m not scared.
For me, faith is being scared and still believing God hasn’t left us.
It’s praying when I don’t know what else to do. It’s remembering the things He’s already brought me through when my mind starts worrying about everything that could happen next. It’s trusting Proverbs 3:5-6 when it tells me not to lean entirely on my own understanding, because right now my own understanding certainly doesn’t have the answers.
Maybe You’re Standing Among Some Shattered Pieces Too
I know our family isn’t the only one going through something difficult. Someone reading this may be facing a medical crisis, grieving someone they love, watching a marriage struggle, drowning financially, worrying about one of their children, or wondering whether a dream they’ve carried for years is ever going to happen.
I don’t have some magical answer that will make any of that disappear.
What I can tell you is that I’ve experienced enough shattered moments in life to know that the moment you’re living in today doesn’t get to write the ending of your story.
Twenty years ago, I thought one accident had permanently closed the door on a dream I’d carried since I was 15. Today, I’m discovering that dream may still be possible. Interestingly enough, God placed that same passion inside our youngest daughter, and suddenly chasing it means even more to me than it did before. I want her to see that life can knock you down, plans can fall apart, and you can make plenty of mistakes along the way without giving up on what God has placed inside you.
Now we’re facing another accident and another mountain that, from where I’m standing today, looks awfully big.
I don’t know how we’re going to climb it yet.
But I know we’re going to start.
Maybe months or years from now I’ll come back to this post and finally understand some of the things I can’t understand today. Maybe I’ll be able to point to something beautiful that grew from one of the scariest seasons our family has experienced.
For now, I’m simply choosing to believe what I’ve believed through every other shattered season.
God is still here.
And as long as He’s still here, I’m going to keep putting one foot in front of the other and trusting that shattered doesn’t mean finished.
I’d love to hear from you. Have you ever experienced a shattered moment in life that you couldn’t understand at the time, but later saw God use in a way you never expected?
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