What to do When Trials Steal Your Joy

I felt heavy that day. My feet felt like cement blocks as I walked around the house. Life had been really hard for a season and I was exhausted and ready to call it quits. Life as a single mom had just become more than I could handle.  I didn’t know how I was going to make one more meal, do one more load of laundry, or teach one more homeschool lesson.

I had prayed, fasted, tithed, and everything else that I felt God called me to do. But things weren’t getting any better. In fact, they were getting progressively worse. I was already at the end of my rope and I knew that I couldn’t take anything else.

Have you ever been in that place? Where things are as bad as you imagined they could get and then they got worse?

3 Ways to Keep Your Joy During Life’s Trials

Learning to stay joyful when life gets hard is not an easy task. It takes more than you feel you have to give.  I have learned that in those moments we need to lean into God’s strength and power.  Those are the moments when He gets to really show us how much He loves us and is there for us.

How can you keep your joy during this time? Here are 3 things that have really helped me during those hard seasons of life:

1. Get to Know God

I believe that God often uses different trials to get our attention. He wants us to come into a closer relationship with Him and hard times are often a way to get us there. When things are going wrong we often pray more, fast more, read our Bible more, etc.

When we spend time getting to really know who God is we are able to put our pain and trials into proper perspective. We begin to understand that God is in control and that He will work all things for our good.

2. Get to Know Scripture

I know that sometimes grabbing your Bible is the hardest thing to get done during the day.  There have been times when I couldn’t even look at my Bible I was in such a dark place.  When Satan tried to tempt Jesus, Jesus put Satan in his place by speaking truth. He quoted the scriptures and Satan had no power.

The more time we spend in the Word the less hold Satan has on us. We know what the Truth is about our God, ourselves, and our situation.

3. Find Community

Isolation is never a good thing when we are going through something hard. We were created to be in fellowship with each other. Having a support system in place to lift you up in prayer when you can’t pray for yourself is crucial. Having someone who can come take your children to the park so you can cry or nap is sanity saving. Being able to call someone up who understands what you are going through is good for the soul.

Those are three things that have really helped me in the past to get through those hard and dark times.