There are some stories that do
not make sense until God finishes writing them.
For a long time, my story felt
like one of those. I went through things that left marks. Real marks. The kind
that does not wash off in the morning and do not disappear after a good night
of prayer, though prayer was the very thing that kept me alive through it all.
I know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of pain you did not ask
for, did not deserve, and could not escape on your own. I know what it feels
like to look at your life and wonder how you ended up here and whether anything
will ever change.
But I also know what it feels
like when God shows up.
And He showed up for me.
Not always in the way I expected. Not always with the
dramatic rescue I prayed for. Sometimes He showed up in the quiet. In a
scripture that landed differently than it ever had before. In a moment of peace
that had no business being there given everything that was happening around me.
In a friend who called at exactly the right time. In a strength that rose up
inside me that I knew with everything in me did not come from me.
That was God. It has always been
God.
Romans 8:28 says that all
things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to
His purpose. I held onto that verse in seasons when holding on was the only
thing I could do. Not because my circumstances looked like they were working
together for anything good. But because I had made a decision to trust the One
who made the promise more than I trusted what my eyes could see.
That decision did not come
easy. Let me be honest about that.
There were moments when the
weight of what I had been through made it hard to believe that any of it could
be redeemed. Trauma has a way of speaking very loudly. It tells you that what
happened to you defines you. It tells you that you are too broken, too far
gone, too marked by your past for God to do anything remarkable with your
future. It tells you that victims stay victims.
That is a lie. And God spent
years dismantling that lie in my life.
He used my trials. He used the
very things that were meant to destroy me as the material He would build
something beautiful with. Not despite the pain. Through it. Isaiah 61:3
promises beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for
the spirit of heaviness. I used to read that and wonder what it would look like
in real life. Now I know. It looks like a person who should have been broken
standing upright. It looks like a voice that was silenced finding its words
again. It looks like freedom in a place where chains used to be.
Joseph understood this. His
brothers sold him into slavery out of jealousy and cruelty. He was falsely
accused and thrown into prison. He spent years in a pit of circumstances he did
not create. But Genesis 50:20 records one of the most powerful things any
person has ever said to their abuser. Joseph looked at his brothers and told
them you intended to harm me but God intended it for good. He did not minimize
what they did. He did not pretend it did not hurt. He simply refused to let
their intentions be the final word over his life because he knew God had
already written a different ending.
Can you look at the hardest
thing you have ever been through and ask God what He was building in you
through it? Not what was taken from you. Not what it cost you. But what He was
forming?
Because the fire
does not just burn. It also shapes.
Every trial I walked through
taught me something I could not have learned any other way. Suffering taught me
compassion for people in pain because I had sat in that same place. It taught
me that God is not just a Sunday morning feeling but an everyday, middle of the
night, rock bottom reality. It taught me that His grace is not a theological
concept. It is a lived experience. It is the thing that catches you when
everything else lets go.
Psalm 34:18 says the Lord is
close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. I have
felt that closeness. In the moments when I was most undone, He was most
present. That is not something I read about someone else. That is my testimony.
And a testimony
is not just a story. It is a weapon.
Revelation 12:11 says they
overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. God did
not bring me through what He brought me through just so I could keep it to
myself. He brought me through it so that someone else sitting in the middle of
their own fire could hear that there is a way out. That God is real. That He
heals. That what the enemy meant for your destruction, God can absolutely use
for your destiny.
I am not a victim of my story.
I am a witness to what God can do with a broken life that stays surrendered to
Him.
The tribulations were real.
The pain was real. But God was more real than all of it. He was working in the
background of every dark chapter, setting things up, building things in me,
preparing me for a chapter I could not yet see.
If you are in the middle of
your trial right now, hear this. You are not forgotten. You are not finished.
God is not done with your story and the fact that you are still here means He
is still writing it.
Weeping may
endure for a night but joy comes in the morning. Your morning is coming.
To God be all the glory, all
the honor, and all the praise. For every valley He walked me through. For every
scar He turned into a story. For every moment He chose me when I felt
completely unchosen.
From victim to victor is not a
journey you make on your own. It is a journey God makes with you, step by
faithful step, until the day you look back and realize that everything that
tried to break you only ended up being the thing that introduced you to a God
who cannot be defeated.
Trust Him with
your story. He is the best author there is.
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