Joy Eggerichs is a blogger, writer, researcher on relationships, sister, new aunt, and daughter of parents who write and speak about marriage. When directing the conferences for her parents’ ministry, Love and Respect, she overheard many attendees say, “If I only knew then what I know now.”  After experiencing a painful heartbreak herself, she began to explore what she and her peers needed to know NOW about relationships, singleness and marriage.

Joy made that research her full-time job. She can be found at all hours developing content, tweeting, blogging and taking phone interviews like the one we did below from her favorite cemetery in Portland, Oregon where she lives.

4word: How have your own experiences, like a breakup of a relationship that seemed headed toward marriage, influence what you share with your peers who are single?

Joy: It’s been such a journey of trying to reconcile who God is; asking myself if I really think He is good or not.  And that’s something I want my peers to ask themselves now.  Belief is foundational. With all the questions I get about relationships, I have come to realize that when any of us are confused and in pain, we must first stop and figure out what we believe.

Do I believe in God? Okay, let’s go from there. Is He good?

So for me, I finally got to the answer of “yes,” and that now shapes the lens with which I see heartache and relationships working or not working out.

I’m not saying if we conclude that God is good that we won’t feel pain.  We must feel our feelings, mourn and acknowledge the brokenness.  But then what?  Can we trust He is up to something greater than what we can comprehend in the moment? This is the question all Christians must ask themselves.