It Was God: Finding Redemption in Our Hardest Seasons (Genesis 45)

I've been wrestling with this question for years: What do you do when the worst thing that ever happened to you turns out to be the best thing God ever did?

I didn't think that way when I was lying in a hospital bed fighting Stage 4 cancer. I didn't think that way when COVID hit and nearly finished what the cancer started. I just wanted to survive. I wanted the pain to stop. I wanted my life back.

But somewhere in those dark seasons, God was writing a story I couldn't see yet.

Let's talk about Joseph.

You probably know the story. Favorite son. Fancy coat. Big dreams. And brothers who hated him enough to throw him in a pit and sell him into slavery.

That wasn't the end of it.

Joseph gets bought by Potiphar, an Egyptian official. He works hard. He's faithful. He rises to the top of the household. And then Potiphar's wife falsely accuses him of assault.

So now he's in prison.

In prison, he interprets dreams for two fellow inmates. One gets released and promises to remember Joseph. But he forgets. Joseph sits in that cell for two more years.

Pit. Slavery. False accusation. Prison. Forgotten.

If you've ever felt like life just kept piling on, you're in good company.

Fast forward. Joseph is now second-in-command in Egypt. A famine hits the region, and his brothers, the ones who sold him, show up in Egypt looking for food.

They don't recognize him.

But Joseph recognizes them.

And here's where the story gets uncomfortable. Joseph has all the power now. He could destroy them. He could make them pay. He could finally get even.

Instead, he weeps.

Read that again.

"God did send me."

Not just "you sold me." Not just "bad things happened." But "God sent me."

Joseph sees the whole story now. The pit wasn't the end. The prison wasn't wasted. The pain had a purpose.

God was positioning him to save lives, including the very brothers who tried to destroy him.

Here's what Joseph understood that most of us miss: God doesn't just clean up our messes. He redeems them. He uses them. He weaves them into something bigger than we can imagine.

Joseph didn't minimize what his brothers did. He didn't pretend it didn't hurt. But he also didn't let bitterness define his story.

He chose to see God's hand in it.

You thought evil. God meant it for good.

That's the shift.

That's the redemption.

You can read more about how to forgive someone biblically in one of my earlier posts, but this goes deeper than just letting go. This is about seeing God's sovereign hand in the story you're living.

Maybe you're in the pit right now.

Maybe you're in the prison.

Maybe you've been falsely accused, forgotten, betrayed, or just crushed by circumstances you didn't choose.

I get it. I've been there. And I'm not going to tell you it doesn't hurt.

But I am going to tell you this: God is not absent in your pain. He's not surprised by it. And He's not wasting it.

The hardest seasons of your life might be the very places where God is positioning you for something you can't see yet.

When I was fighting cancer, I couldn't see past the next treatment. I couldn't see how God would use any of it. But now, years later, I see it. I see how those hospital rooms became holy ground. I see how that suffering opened doors to conversations, to ministry, to a depth of grace I never knew before.

I see how God sent me through it.

Not around it. Through it.

Here's where we get stuck: We see the bad as only bad.

We see the betrayal and stop there. We see the loss and call it the end of the story. We see the pain and assume God must be punishing us or that He's far away.

But Joseph teaches us something different.

He teaches us that God is always writing a bigger story. He's always working toward preservation, restoration, and redemption: even when we can't see it yet.

That doesn't mean everything that happens to you is good. Evil is real. Sin is real. Injustice is real.

But God is bigger.

And He specializes in bringing life out of death, hope out of despair, and purpose out of pain.

As I've shared in The Big Leap of Faith, God's love for you isn't contingent on how well you hold it together. It's not diminished by your suffering. In fact, it's often in the hardest moments that His grace becomes most real.

So how do you get there? How do you move from "this is the worst thing ever" to "God is doing something here"?

1. Stop trying to make sense of it all right now.

Joseph didn't understand his story while he was in the pit. He couldn't see the bigger picture from the prison cell. The clarity came later.

Give yourself permission to not have all the answers yet.

2. Look for where God has shown up.

Even in the darkest seasons, God leaves fingerprints. Maybe it was a friend who called at just the right time. Maybe it was a verse that held you together. Maybe it was just the grace to get through one more day.

Those aren't accidents.

3. Choose to believe God is still writing.

Your story isn't over. The chapter you're in right now isn't the last one. God is still at work, even when you can't feel it.

Trust the Author.

God doesn't author evil, but He does allow it: and He promises to redeem it. Joseph's brothers chose evil, but God used their choices to fulfill His purposes. God doesn't waste your pain.

Sometimes it takes years. Joseph waited over a decade before he understood why he went through what he did. Don't rush the process. Trust that God is working even when you can't see it yet.

Forgiveness is a process, not a one-time event. Start by being honest with God about how you feel. Ask Him to give you the grace to release the bitterness. You can read more about biblical forgiveness and letting go on the blog.

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