For a long time I felt very angry for the amount of pain and suffering I had in my life. I blamed God, my family, my husband, and even myself. I believed that my life was meant for suffering and that God created me to suffer. It was incredibly hard for me to see anything else outside of that belief because it was so rooted in my identity. The problem with that belief was it is so far away from the identity God has given to me. God has called me to bring hope through my story, but not even…
It has been a long journey for me to learn to rely on God. When I first became a Christian I wanted nothing more than to have complete surrender to God in every area of my life. I prayed over every decision I made because I didn’t want to take a step in the wrong direction. I wanted to make sure that everything I did was God’s will for my life. What I didn’t realize I was doing was still a part of retaining control. I know that sounds very odd to think that praying and seeking the Lord in…
I have always viewed suffering as a terrible thing, and have done everything in my power to escape it for as long as I can remember. Lately, I have to ask myself, why is suffering such a bad thing, something I have been so desperate to escape? According to Romans 5:3-5, suffering is actually a good thing, because it produces endurance, character, and hope. Hope is a confident expectation, not in what we can see, but what is unseen; that is in the coming of the Lord, the salvation we have in Him, and the eternal life we will receive…
Two years ago, in the midst of the despair in my suffering, Jesus spoke to me saying “I am making all things new”, and He gave me this verse: Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19 I wanted to believe Him. I needed to believe Him, and I held on to that promise choosing to hope in something that looked utterly impossible. Yet as the days, weeks, and months passed by, I never saw a change…
As a new Christian, I could not understand suffering. I believed that if God loved me, He would relieve me of all suffering and give me a life of happiness and fulfillment. I believed that He was a good and loving God, and therefore naturally, He would protect me from every bad thing. What I didn’t understand was that suffering is not actually a bad thing, but a part of our walk as believers in Christ Jesus. One of the things that bothered me the most about suffering was the feeling that it made my life worthless; that all of…