What if God's Will is Not My Will?

Hello, Jolene Navarro here. Si Dios quiere. Google translate cannot always be trusted. If you hear a native Spanish speaker say Si Dios quiere they are telling you they trust God in everything, the good and the bad. To have faith that God is always good, even in the middle of a storm.  It means to completely trust in God’s will. If you plugged it into the internet you might get – Yes, God he wants. LOL! I think there is a great deal lost in translation.

In my September release The Soldier’s Surprise Family, the heroine Anjelica Ortega-Garza has been raised to live this way and for the most part she does. But as we know believing something and living something are two different things.

As I write this my husband and I are driving to San Marcos Texas, delivering things forgotten as our four children transition to living on their own. For the first time in twenty-five years we are the only people living in our house.

I did try to raise them with natural consequences – I didn’t run to the school to deliver homework or lunches left behind. It was supposed to teach them not to forget the stuff they needed. I’m here to tell you it didn’t seem to work. Maybe it did and they would be even worse than they are now. They did manage to remember most of their belongings. I'm sad with all four leaving at once, but Si Dios quiere.

What does this have to do with Si Dios quiere? Life is full of changes some are big and will crumble the foundation you are standing on, while others are small and  sneak up on you. But through it all we have to know how to live in God’s will.

Life consistently changes, it always has and always will, all the while staying the same.  Sometimes Si Dio quiere can tear your gut out.  When you get a call that you mother has been taken to the hospital with what looks like a stroke you start praying, you pray for her to be healed and fine. But sometimes prayers are not answered the way you want.  My grandmother held my hand as she prayed for God’s will and to align the desire of our hearts with God.

What if God’s will is not my will?

This is the truest meaning of faith. To look around and know that God has you and you will grieve but you can’t get lost in the changes of life. You have to trust in God so that you can live fully and find the purpose he has for you, a purpose only you can achieve.

In The Soldier’s Surprise Family, Garret Kincaid has returned from war and a divorce mentally scared and doesn’t trust anyone, especial God.

When he discovers he has a son he didn’t know about, a son that has his own PTSD issues he knows he has to accept help. Falling in love with his landlady, Anjelica wasn’t part of the plan. Yet even Garrett can’t deny that love has begun building a family right around him. He learns  to trust God’s will.

Expert from The Solider's Surprise Family:

Anjelica kept her gaze on Garrett’s face as he started at the top photo of the boy. Not able to resist, she peeked over his arm and saw a serious little boy with Garrett’s green-gray eyes starting back at them.

Garrett pressed his hand over his eyes.

Moving back, she wanted to give him space to collect himself. A broken heart was nothing new to her, but to watch such a controlled man fight to hold it together made her want to wrap him in her arms.

He handed her the photo, paper-clipped to an information sheet. “I don’t know how to do this, being a father.”

“We can make it work.” She blurted out. Thinking of what happened to those two small children, she knew they needed a home full of love and good memories. Tears burned her eyes. “We have to make this right for them. We have to bring them to a real home.”

He looked at her. “We?”

The Soldier's Surprise Family by Jolene Navarro

I loved writing Garrett and Anjelica's story of healing and faith. Si Dios quiere.  Thank you for letting me share my thoughts, pictures and my latest story.  

Blessings Through Adversity--Real Life & Fiction

One day my dh looked at me as I was planning a new story.
I use a spiral notebook to write out my hero and heroine personalities, backgrounds, motivations and challenges.
He looked at it and said, "You're kind of like God."
I was speechless for a few moments. Then I asked, "What do you mean?"
He said, "You plan their whole lives and know what will be best for them."
He got it.

When I plan a story, I create realistic characters, meaning they have problems, troubles from the past, and something to learn. That's the tough part--on them. As the author, I can't go easy on them. I have to keep throwing things at them, that demand change and growth. If I'm too easy on them, they won't change and they won't be prepared to receive the blessings (love) God wants for them. (And I won't have a story anyone including my editor will enjoy!)

Sometimes I will actually be too nice to my characters. I mean I'm not a mean person and I hate pulling out rug after rug from beneath my heroes and heroines. But if I'm nice, there is no story.

In my second Love Inspired, NEW MAN IN TOWN, I planned that my heroine's grandmother who raised her was deceased before the story began.

Imagine my surprise when in chapter two my heroine started driving to town to visit her grandmother at the local nursing home. I grabbed the steering wheel and said, "Hey! She's at the cemetery!"
My heroine wouldn't give in and there she was going into the nursing home. Then I knew why I had tried to rid my heroine of her grandmother, her "Mommy Dearest" grandmother. The grandmother was the villain!

And I didn't want her messing with my hero and heroine's lives. And interestingly, that book brought me the most readers letters. Every woman wanted to tell me about a manipulating, conniving, self-centered women in their lives. So without Grandma Dearest the story would not have had the impact it did. It wouldn't have forced my heroine to see her grandmother for what she was and to begin to have a relationship with her dad and his second wife and her half-sister. And she wouldn't have been ready to have a grownup love with the hero.

I don't know what challenges are in your life right now. Illness, unemployment, prodigal children, mourning. Life is never easy for anyone. I've learned over the years never to look at someone else and say--"Oh, she has it easy."

We all have our public faces and our private suffering. EVERYONE. No one gets through this life without paying hefty dues.

The secret is that if you love the Lord, the suffering is always for a purpose.

He doesn't torture us for the fun of it. He loves us enough to force us out of our comfort zones and sometimes He's pretty rough with us.

Especially if we resist change. Better to go with Him and find out in the end what the purpose of the present challenge was.

A friendly warning--learn whatever truth or change is necessary the first time you're confronted with it. Don't make God give you a make-up assignment!

"For we know that all things work together for good for those called according to His purpose"!

God loves us enough, not to let life be so easy we remain immature. He loves us enough to make us grow up! And be more like Him.