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For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Kaley Olson: Well, hey, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast, where we share biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kayle Olson, and I'm joined with my co-host for today's episode, Ellen Adkins. Hey, Ellen.
Ellen Adkins: Hey, glad to be back. What is up?
Kaley Olson: And our teacher for today, Wendy Blight. Hey, guys, how are we doing?
Yeah, you're doing
Wendy Blight: good, good, good.
Kaley Olson: If you are just joining us, we're in part three of a four-week series where we're doing a deep dive into the four themes of Advent. Hope, peace, joy, and love. Each week, we're looking at a new theme, salvation.
seeing how it plays a part in one big story God is telling, a story that shows us where we've been, where we are and where we're headed. And I know this series has been such a gift to me as I've learned more about how Jesus brings hope to my brokenness and peace to my chaos. It's been deeply impactful and profound. And I would honestly say it wasn't what I thought it was.
in the best way. Like I'm learning so much more about hope and peace than I thought that I would. And it's been really deep and really great.
Ellen Adkins: And we're only halfway through.
Kaley Olson: We're only halfway through, but Ellen, I want to know what's something you've been grateful to learn.
Ellen Adkins: Okay. So week one, Wendy taught on hope in the midst of our brokenness and something that you said that
really stuck with me is how our hope is not rooted in our circumstances or even any particular outcome, but it is rooted in God. And that's just really stuck with me ever since you said that.
Wendy Blight: Aw, thanks. That's sweet. It's always sweet to hear what
You know, you pray for every person who's listening to whatever the Lord has for them. So thanks, Ellen. That means a lot. We forget how much we need it too.
Kaley Olson: So it's always a gift. You know, as you are listening, guys, wherever you're listening, if you're on the road, if you're folding your laundry or whatever, like we are receiving this right now alongside with you. You're just hearing it after it's been recorded. So it's pretty special. So this week, Wendy, you're here with us to share about how Jesus's arrival brings joy to
in the midst of our suffering. And so take it away for this week's teaching in our Advent series.
Wendy Blight: All right, thanks so much, Kaley. You know, I remember the season I'm about to share with you like it was yesterday. My daughter Lauren was 13 and suffered constant back pain. And finally, our pediatrician sent us to an orthopedic surgeon to determine the cause.
And we walked into his office that day having no idea that the words he would speak would upend our sweet girl's life for the next four years. After he examined her, we heard the words scoliosis, which is a curvature of the spine, 50 and 53 degree double curve, wear a back brace 23 out of 24 hours a day for two years.
Ellen Adkins: Wow.
Wendy Blight: Lauren and I just walked out stunned and devastated, sat in the car in the parking garage, and we both just cried for a few minutes. And those next few months just wore us down. She faithfully wore her brace, and it honestly was a brace that deformed her body, caused sleepless nights, filled with pain and sorrow, required her to quit.
what she loved high school and competitive cheerleading. And I know questions filled her young heart. Why me God? What did I do? But sorrow is what filled my heart. I too had words for God. Why her? What did we fail to see that could have prevented this? Please take this. You know, as a mom, it's like, take it and give it to me, please.
And so we did all the things, you know, we took her to church. We had elders lay hands on her. I prayed over her. I anointed her with oil and prayed healing. So many friends and family prayed healing, but that healing never came and her curve and her pain worsened. Many nights she lay in my bed, locked in that brace, sobbing.
"Why me, mom? I don't understand." And I remember laying next to her exhausted and feeling hopeless and wondering, "How are we gonna make it to the other side of this?" And it felt honestly like sadness
And sorrow just ruled over our home for that time. And her pain never receded. Her back continued to worsen. So we tried alternative methods. We stopped the brace, went to physical therapy and manipulation. And they actually worked for a time until she turned 15.
And then now she was a new driver, a varsity cheerleader. She was confident and just funny. She's hilarious actually. And then the curve started to move, but in an even faster pace because she was going through maturity and it began to impact her organs. And so surgery became our only option.
And it meant that rods and screws would line her spine from top to bottom and require months of rehab, missing school and having a person come and help at home. And her competitive cheerleading career was forever ended. And all of a sudden my sorrow that I had turned to anger. Like I was mad at God.
And I kept saying, why have you not brought the healing the way we boldly prayed, confidently prayed, just as you direct us to do in your word? And at first glance, yes, the healing never came in my eyes because he didn't heal in the way I and we and so many others had specifically prayed. We prayed that miracle healing or that things would work. But, um,
By God's mighty hand and her faithful and hard work, it just seemed like what more is there? What more is there? But time reveals the rest of this story because yeah, surgery is what straightened her spine. It just wasn't in how I had hoped and prayed. We wanted to save her from that.
But one life-changing, life-giving surprise, actually, that we found in the midst of this journey was the true meaning of biblical joy and how you can have joy in the midst of deep human sorrow. And as a Bible teacher, my heart's desire, my call is to help others find the answers they're seeking when they're looking to the Word, when they're looking for God. And so as I say this, I want to say looking back,
I wanna assure you that it is okay, even if you're a strong believer, to kneel before the Lord and shake your fist and ask why and cry before the Lord because it's there in that raw place when you really begin to hear God.
You can really begin to hear what He has to say and the issue you're wrestling with Him with. And it's there that you can truly surrender because He is the one who has the direction and the answer. He is the one with the wisdom.
And so along this scoliosis journey, there were several verses and passages that came, but the one that, this is when I learned to pray God's word back to him. So take a scripture and pray it because like we said, it's living and active. And so when we pray it into a situation, Isaiah 55, 10 and 11 tell us it won't return void. It will accomplish what God desires and achieve the purposes for which he sent it. So I personalize this Proverbs 3, 5 and 6 verse
And it says, Wendy, give Lauren to me. Trust me with all your heart. Don't lean on the knowledge of chiropractors, physical therapists, and others. Do not lean on your fears. Acknowledge me, my name, my power, my strength, my love. And I promise to direct your path. And I have, and I did, and I've brought you here. This is the path I've led to you. So trust me.
And what's so special about this verse is that Lauren took that to be her life verse. And to this day, that is her life verse. And life verse just means, if you haven't heard that before, it's just a verse that you sort of hold on to because you've seen God move and work in your life. And so also, in addition to a few specific verses, that God gave me this word joy and joy.
to this day on my bed is a pillow that has the word joy on it to forever remind me of this journey she and I walked through together. But joy is such an odd word for the Lord to give someone when you feel forgotten by God and you really feel void of any joy.
but I kept on studying and I learned so much along the way. And that's where I wanna do because I really always wanna take you back to the word. So when we study in the Old Testament, we see joy as a response to God's faithfulness, to his provision, to his acts of deliverance. So let's look at King David. He illustrated this when he spoke these words.
for all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens, splendor and majesty are before him, strength and joy are in his dwelling place. Well, David spoke these words after a great victory and after he restored the Ark of the Covenant, which was the most holy thing that Israel had. And the Hebrew word here is chedba, and it means gladness and rejoicing. So the people were rejoicing
And we see here, it's not rooted in a fleeting emotion. It was rooted because of their covenant relationship with him. He was the source of their strength and it sustained them. They saw what he was doing as confirming his kingship and confirming his provision.
So that is their response. That was something that came out because of what he did for them. And centuries later, Nehemiah, who was the influential cupbearer and governor, reminded God's people of this same truth after they rebuilt the temple wall and returned from exile. It says, Nehemiah, Ezra, and the priests said to the people, this day is sacred to the Lord forever.
"'Your God, do not mourn or weep, for all the people have been weeping "'as they listened to the words of the law. "'This day is holy to our Lord. "'Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. This Shedvah was the joy that sustained them in the hard times and carried them forward. They celebrated their freedom, just as David and God's people did before them, because God had kept his promise and he had returned what he had promised. He returned them to their homeland.
So then let's go to the New Testament because the news is better and greater. Our joy is not simply a response to God's faithfulness and provision. It doesn't just well up because of something he's done. For us, because of Jesus, joy literally lives inside of us. God sent Jesus to live among his people to reveal his love and his heart for them. Luke tells the story of a group of shepherds while watching over their flocks,
"Look to the sky and the glory of the Lord shown around them. And what they saw terrified them until an angel of the Lord appeared to calm their hearts and said, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord." Jesus coming brings good news that will cause great joy.
And then later in his ministry, Jesus spoke about that same joy to his disciples. And he said, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.
This Jesus joy lives in us. And it's not like the Old Testament where it was just a response when we saw the goodness of God. They saw the goodness of God in His provision and so they responded with joy. In the New Testament, it's a gift we receive when we accept Jesus as our Savior. In that moment, the very Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us.
And with him, he brings the fruit of the spirit. And one fruit is joy. That's in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about.
because you can see all the other fruit. And this joy is ever present in us. It doesn't go away, but it can wane or it can increase depending upon the time that we spend with him. But Jesus' joy in us is why we can find joy in sorrow and we have access to it every day. So if I take you back to Lauren's story during our scoliosis journey, I wrote a devotion on joy for Proverbs 31 Ministries. And the response,
That's just rocked our world because when we felt we couldn't take another step, P31 teammates that I worked with, but more than that, people like you, our wider Proverbs 31 family filled what we called our empty cup.
with verses and cards and messages that enabled us to take our eyes off of our sorrow and our circumstances and place them on our Savior. The women shared scriptures that sustained us. These two especially spoke to my faith and deepened my understanding of the why behind our trials and how to pray through them. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 through 18 says, "'Rejoice always.'"
Pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Okay, rejoice and pray and give thanks in all circumstances. Well, we don't feel like doing that very much when we walk through times like I'm talking about. James 1, two to four, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance so you may be perfect
and complete and not lacking anything. We hear, consider it all joy when you encounter trials, but y'all there's a whole, we don't have time to talk about it today, but there's the whole rest of that. We have to know that we're gonna be tested and that testing has great purpose, just like I talked about in week one.
So their words, God's words sustained us, especially when I looked at the word joy and God gave me three words, Jesus, J, only O, U, Y. Through the love of other believers in God's word, I learned the incredible importance of seeking and abiding in Jesus because that's where the joy will begin to come back full.
"Just Jesus and me, I stayed and remained." I found a few verses of my own, one of which remains my favorite to this day. I love the visual. "When I discovered your words, I ate them."
God's word is manna. God's word is manna. It was manna in the Old Testament. Jesus is the bread of life. We are told this when I ate them and not just ate them, y'all ate them up. When I ate them up, like when I'm eating M&Ms or something, you just don't wanna stop. They were my great joy and my heart's delight.
I am yours and I bear the name of the eternal God, commander of heaven's armies. You see, it's a battle. We're in a battle. The enemy loves to take us into these battles. And this is where we can say, I've got God's word and I've got the joy of the Lord in me and I bear his name and you get out of here and you go away. You have no place in our lives. So Jesus was the answer.
Only he could have flipped that script and shifted our perspective and moved our hearts to confess Jesus only you. Those words are what carried us through to the other side. I saw increased evidence of this joy, not only in that initial outpouring for us and our family, but months later at our Proverbs 31 office.
I was praying with a coworker over deep sorrow in her marriage. And as she shared her story, her anger with God, her helplessness and her grief, how she felt betrayed, how it mirrored the pain Lauren and our little family had felt. Circumstances totally different, but where we go is the same. It was just a few years earlier, but as she wept,
All those verses God had brought flooded back to me and they just poured out of my tongue. They were just, I prayed them over her and she wept and I wept. And as I closed our prayer time, I realized, oh my gosh, joy not only filled my heart, but I had digested so much in such a deep way. They became part of me and they naturally poured forth to comfort my friend in her sorrow.
And God revealed a great truth that day. It cannot fill our hearts when we're consumed by sorrow and confusion and doubt or bitterness and pain. Joy cannot fill our hearts when our eyes are fixed on our circumstances. It can only fill our hearts when our eyes are fixed on Jesus. And then when we're ready, then we can go and fix our eyes on others and help them find that same joy. And yes, I'm confessing right now.
I still question why God allows tragic circumstances and painful trials. I am preaching to my own heart right now with something else I'm walking through with my same sweet girl. But now I've learned that when my mind travels to those places and tries to linger, I go back to that name of Jesus and I go back to those words, Jesus, only you. And I go back to his word.
Jesus came so that I and so that you can experience His joy fully, completely through any and all circumstances. And God's word ensures we know our joy doesn't end on this earth.
When our days come to an end and we step into eternity, into the holy city, a place already prepared for us, these words from scripture right here. Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things have passed away.
And here's what's brought me comfort as I'm walking with my girl right now. And I want you to just, you can close your eyes, but I want you to imagine this glorious day with me. I can hardly believe what's before me. All I've ever known is gone. Heaven and earth have passed away. Everything is new. Before me is the holy city, the new Jerusalem descending from heaven.
The glory of the Lord shines all around me. The city is made of pure gold, yet it's clear as glass. It's great while adorned with precious jewels, glimmers like anything I've ever seen. There's no darkness for the light of the world illuminates every corner. Tears well up.
Joy overwhelms. I can hardly take it in. A river of crystal clear living water flows from the throne of the Lamb of God. And on each bank stands the tree of life bearing perfect fruit. And I'm surrounded by worshipers, every race and nation bowing before the throne of God and the Lamb of God. I lift my eyes to see my creator and my savior before me. I'm standing in their presence.
The fullness of wonder and joy captivate and fill my heart. I feel as if I can't breathe. I'd learned of God's glory. I'd asked for touches of his glory, but now I can do nothing but fall on my face before his Shekinah glory and join the throng of worshipers bowing down before him, casting their crowns at his feet. And I hear a great voice coming from the throne.
The home of God is now with his people. He will live among them and they will be his people and God himself will be among them. All prophecies fulfilled. He has wiped away every tear. No more death, no more mourning, no more pain. The first things have gone away. And then I hear the one on the throne speak, a voice I have longed to hear announced to his creation. I am making all things new.
So friend, I leave you with these words. Jesus, only you, from the dawn of creation to the serpent in the garden, to the cradle, to the cross, to your resurrection and redemption, to your second coming, to the holy city where you will reign and rule for all eternity. Glory, glory, king of glory. Thank you that is all just as God said.
So will you join with us and choose joy today?
Kaley Olson: Isn't it so hard to choose joy though?
Wendy Blight: It is.
Kaley Olson: When we get to the end of the year, and we've kind of been talking about this a little bit in week one about the victim mentality and you walking into Christmas or kind of the holiday season and just being like, oh, woe is me or choosing to kind of like, I don't know, have a...
bad attitude or be scroogey or you get to Christmas and it's just not what you thought it would be. I think joy and hope are somewhat similar, but I also think something that could be added is the idea that comparison is the thief of joy. Because I think discontentment is a suffering we bring on ourselves. Even comparing our suffering with
to those who have it easy, who maybe have what we don't yet have or might have what has been taken from us. Wendy, you mentioned
Kind of at the beginning of your teaching, you said, I want you to hear me say that it's okay to kneel before the Lord with your anger, to allow your tears to flow, to shake your fist at God and ask why. And I think in some weird way, I think doing this allows us to get to the root of why. Because we ask God why, but I think that there's something behind the why that we...
it comes out as discontentment. It comes out as anger. It comes out as like the opposite of joy, but we really need to understand like, why, what is the thing that we're so disappointed in? What is our heart really telling us with what our tears are? And I remember, Wendy, you walked with me through a really hard season a couple of years ago where, I mean, I experienced a couple of years of infertility and then I lost a baby.
And then had more infertility and I finally got pregnant, which was such a miracle. But part of that story that I haven't shared was while I was walking through infertility and right after my miscarriage, my little sister got pregnant.
And that was really hard. And I mean, again, it's kind of one of those things where it was like, can't I just go through this alone and not have anything else to compare to? She who did not suffer, she who had a perfectly fine pregnancy and all of that. And I think that I thought that I was processing it okay. But the day that she,
went into labor and delivered her baby, I was like, "Jared, my husband, we gotta get out of here. Like, I can't be at home. I need to change her scene or I've gotta focus on something else." And I was trying to, now what I know I was doing was trying to find joy somewhere else. Like from not looking at the circumstances that were in front of me so very clearly because it was like her baby was in her arms and I still was like, "God, what are you doing? Like, why are you allowing this?"
And I didn't address it, didn't address it, didn't address it. It was just kind of like, okay, go to Asheville, see the mountains, like just get out of town. Don't think about it. And it'll pass and you can go back to normal life after this feeling is gone.
But I remember that night, I got back to our room and all of a sudden out of nowhere, it's just like the tears just came. And I think I had that one moment that you were talking about where you said, just let them come and let them flow. But the reason that I share all of this is I think in that moment, what I was trying to tell myself through all those years of suffering was,
Maybe if you just pretend that you don't want it bad enough, then it won't hurt as bad. Maybe if you just pretend that you don't want a baby bad enough, then it won't hurt so bad and it makes your suffering less hard. It was me trying to control my suffering, me trying to, I don't know, in some ways, normalize it or make it okay.
But I think what I was doing in reality was not acknowledging what my heart's true desire was. And in some ways, keeping God at bay, kind of letting him help me, but not really hold me. And I think that that was the first time that I truly, outside of when I'm actually miscarried and had that experience, when my sister had what I didn't.
And I finally just let it all out. I experienced a different kind of closeness with the Lord. And I wouldn't call it what we would call joy because I think that that came after. But I think what it did was it was the first step in kind of really me just like leveling out with God and knowing that He could take that. And so I share that.
because maybe that's what somebody listening needs to do today. But joy might seem impossible for you in this season of suffering that you're in. And by no means are we recording this episode saying, sister, you gotta lay it down and like pick up the joy of the Lord. But I think joy takes time to get to. Like God's word can bring you joy. God's presence can bring you joy. It is the place that you can start. It's hard to just trade it in a
and immediately embrace joy. But maybe that is what you need to do. Maybe you need to let Jesus truly wipe away every tear and just process and really get to the root of the suffering, get through the root of the discontentment that you might be feeling and let that be the starting place for joy.
Ellen Adkins: I think one of the reasons why joy can feel so elusive to us is that we can skip over that process of lament or even confuse grief with lament. And lament, biblically speaking, is a grief infused with hope. And so I just think about that verse that talks about how there'll be weeping in the night, but joy comes in the morning. And I think we can gloss over that lament and...
that can really keep us from experiencing joy. And again, not joy is like some, oh, I'm happy and have good feelings when I think about this. But I think Dallas Willard, he defines joy as a pervasive sense of wellbeing infused with hope and rooted in the goodness of God. And I love that. And I think, yeah, that practice of lament is so important. So I'm so glad that you brought that up, Wendy.
Wendy Blight: Thank you. But I also, I want to be very honest and say that
for someone when you're in the midst of unanswered prayer for something you feel you've done everything and prayed for. The goodness of God feels far away sometimes. It feels very far away, even though in your head, you know that it is. And I think your words minister to me today with where I am, Kaley. So thank you very much for being vulnerable and sharing that part of your story because our faith is a journey.
And when we overcome things, we overcome them, but that doesn't mean they won't come back again. But then when they do, you have tools and you have the word and you have believing friends and you have all the things that will help you to walk through so you can come to that place. But I think cleansing tears is a real thing in scripture to weep and weep and weep.
until you can weep no more. And I think it washes away some of those things that we're talking about.
Kaley Olson: Yeah, it washes away those things we're talking about. But there's also such a joy in knowing even the suffering we can bring on ourselves through our own sin. And because of Jesus' blood, because He came, we aren't who we were anymore. And that is such a reason to be joyful and look at the past and
and realize, yeah, I might've caused some of that suffering, but thank God I'm not like that anymore. And if there's not another reason for joy that you have today, then there's one right there. So Wendy, thank you so much for this teaching today. As we end our time together, one of the things that I have tried to be
intentional about doing is sharing a story from one of our followers, whether that's on social media or devotion subscriber, podcast listener. And so today we have a story from one of our Instagram followers. So Ellen, will you read her story, please?
Ellen Adkins: Yes. She says, when I feel anxious and afraid, the post from Proverbs 31 ministries helped me so much. The Lord uses this ministry to reach me every time I need a reminder. I'm so incredibly thankful for Proverbs 31.
Kaley Olson: I love that so much. These kinds of stories are really only possible because of those of you who faithfully partner with Proverbs 31 Ministries. Your generosity allows women around the world to access free biblically sound resources like this podcast or what we post on our social media, all of it.
is made readily available because of you. And these stories of life change really fuel us and why we do what we do behind the scenes here every day at Proverbs 31 Ministries. So from all of us to you, a huge thank you. Well, next week, we'll see you for the fourth and final installment of our Advent series, where we are gonna talk about life.
Love. And Ellen, you're gonna be giving the teaching and I'm super excited about it. That's all we have for you today at Proverbs 31 Ministries. We believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it changes everything.