The choice is ours.

Every now and then, things come your way in life. Things you weren't expecting. Things you didn't ask for. Things you don't deserve.

For some, these things seem to come far too often, and for others, they seem to come once in a blue moon. Either way, though, when things come along in your life that shake you to your core and break your heart, your life is changed forever.

There's nothing like a broken heart. It affects the way you see, the way you walk, the way you breathe. It transcends something mental and turns into a physical hurt. Someone might as well sock you in the stomach, it wouldn't matter. When your heart aches, you feel actual pain through every bone of your body.

The questions inevitably rise, with WHY? surfacing to the top every time. Why is this happening? Why is God doing this? Why me? Why now? Why, why, why?

And then you wait. For an answer. For a quick solution. For an easy fix. For a pinch to tell you it's all okay, it was a dream all along.

And while you wait, you have a choice. The most important choice of all. The choice to decide: Will I follow God, or will I turn my back. Will I choose to follow Him, to bless Him, to seek Him, to trust Him. Or, will I give up. Will I abandon the faith. Will I trust myself more. Will I throw in the towel.

The choice is there. In every crisis, in every decision, in every tear, the choice is there. Will I go out in this world with God, or will I go out in this world on my own?

CS Lewis writes, "Satan's cause is never more in danger than when we, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do God's will, look round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and ask why we have been forsaken, and still obey."

When we feel forsaken, it does not mean that God is not right by our side. When we look around our world and feel like every trace of the Lord and his goodness have disappeared, it does not mean that he is not showing himself to us in a brand new way. And most importantly, when our world is shaken, and our hearts are broken, it does not give us an excuse not to trust or obey...in fact, it gives us every reason to do just the opposite.

Because real faith, deep, genuine faith, lives and breathes in the heartbreaks...in the silence...in the confusion. For these are the times where we are given the choice, the times where it all boils down to black or white. One way or another. My way or God's way.

In theory, the choice is simple. We've been promised that God's way works, every time. No questions asked. The confusion, the fear...it's all an illusion of sorts. The proven reality, whether we understand it or not, is that God is always good. The truth is that the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, and it up to us to choose to say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord."

The hardships of this world have no power over us or our rattled lives when we choose obedience and faith in the midst of sorrow and silence. God is honored, and we are given peace, strength and courage to press on through the muddled, sinful world in which we live.

This, my friends, is where true joy and peace are found. Not in the calm times or the easy times, but in the times where our world is stormy. Because the stormy times prove that God is bigger than the storms of pain and confusion. He is in control. He offers peace, a peace that passes all our human understanding. He offers joy, a joy that is not contingent on our circumstances. And he offers hope, when all hope seems lost.

The choice is ours.