Hope all is well.
God can cause all things to work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Sometimes if you step back and look at things from a macro/ long term view you can see how what seemed like a hard time, God ultimately used to teach you something, or put you in the right place at right time, etc and something good came out of it all - that maybe you wouldn't have learned whatever it was, or wound up with the good that came etc.
I took about 7 to 8 weeks off at one point when things seemed difficult. I thought I was doing what God wanted, I was trying to do the right things etc.
It drove me to a point where I questioned. I was going I am doing what I think God wants and trying to do things the right way, why are things so hard?!?
What ended up happening was after prayer and seeking God, I got this huge hunger to read the scriptures. Not the cliff notes, not the little daily amount, not a speech about it.
I put the Bible in chronological order.
I then spent the next 7 to 8 weeks waking up, praying, then beginning my day reading - not just to read - but scrutinizing it.
Im self employed, so I put scripture as first priority. Did only the absolutely necessary stuff with work. Was out in the country. Kept the TV off. Minimal cell phone. Kinda just buffered myself from the outside world and focused on God and the Bible.
I stopped when I got to a verse or passage that didn't seem clear at first. Looked at multiple Bible versions, a concordance and hebrew and Greek lexicon, and moved on when I felt I understood the verse or passage.
I have notebooks full of notes from that time. I'd take a lunch break then back to it until dinner.
There was some extremely peaceful time then. It was amazing. And if I hadn't had gotten to that point of just ... Ugh.. I don't know if I ever would've done that. It was so worth it. I thank God for the desire He put in me to do that.
I've since read it all the way through multiple times using morning and some evenings, digging even deeper. It's started to become an annual thing for me.
And I found that if I put it in chronological order, divide it up into 365 days, and start day 1 on Pentecost, a lot of the days, feasts, events etc in the Bible fall on or close to the days when I'm actually reading about them in the Bible.
It's pretty cool, especially after I learned that the Jews celebrated the day of Pentecost as the day they received the Torah.
I'd recommend putting the Bible in chronological order, taking time away, prayerfully seek God ask for the Holy Spirit to give you eyes to see and help to understand what you're reading, then dive in.
I recognize that's what I was led to do in my situation, and maybe God has something different for you, it all starts with seeking God though.
Peace
