[This is the start of my newest article for RELEVANT Magazine.]

One year ago, my husband and I had solid jobs, a great community and a church that we loved.

At this moment, we are living with my parents, we are unemployed and we are moving to a new city in a week. My husband will be attending graduate school next month.

Talk about a curveball.

This is not what I expected. I never pictured that we would be walking away from steady jobs and our group of friends to start all over again.

Our lives don’t always go the way we want—or expect—them to go. We get let go from the job we love (and need). We come up short trying to pay the bills. Our hearts get broken. Relationships end. Accidents happen. Bodies don’t heal. Death comes too soon.

So how to we continue to walk with God in seasons when life throws us a curveball?

During the last 12 months, my husband and I haven’t done things perfectly (by any stretch!), but we have met Jesus in the challenges of change and unexpected circumstances—and we love Christ more now than we did last year. Here are four things we’ve learned in the process of catching a life curveball—and moving forward.

Acknowledge Your Feelings

The worst thing we can do with feelings of disappointment and frustration is bottle them up and pretend like everything is fine, especially with God.

If we are angry about a curveball in our lives, or hurt by it, or confused by it, we need to acknowledge those emotions. God already knows how we feel, and when we refuse to own those emotions, we’re only hurting ourselves.

God already knows how we feel, and when we refuse to own those emotions, we’re only hurting ourselves. Share on X

Whether it means writing things down, talking out loud to God or writing a song about it, we need to unfold the places of pain and tension in our hearts to Jesus. He can handle it; He gets it. The prophet Isaiah tells us that Jesus was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He understands what we feel when life doesn’t go the way we had hoped.

Read the Bible

In a world that is continuously changing, the truth of the Scripture remains constant. Reading the Bible is not just a rote exercise—it actually changes us, comforts us and challenges us.

In a world that is continuously changing, the truth of the Scripture remains constant. Share on X

The writer of the book of Hebrews reminds us that “the Word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12). While the words on the page stay the same, the Holy Spirit is always ministering to our hearts, and the same Bible verse can impact us differently in new seasons of life.

Consistently reading the Word of God when life throws us a curveball is one of the clearest ways to stay grounded—and even hopeful—in confusing times.

Read the rest of the article here, at RELEVANT Magazine!