While reading Kasey Van Norman’s book, in the room I grew up in at my parents house last night this stuck with me…

Every death changes you, every birthday changes you, every hurt changes you, every win, every tear, everything we go through in this life.. changes you.

Ready or not life is coming and everything you go through changes you. How you let it change you.. well that’s your free will to choose. Choose wisely my friends.. because it affects everyone around you. At home. At work. Everyone you have contact with and come in to contact with. They will see it in you…

As I thought about the words she wrote I read it over and over and thought about this last 6 months, last 3 years, last 10 years. All the changes that have happened and the changes that are yet to come.

How the voices in my head seem to battle with what is good and what is not good. I have to choose what is good, even if I don’t quite understand God’s plan. Last week I began getting angry at God. That “bad voice” was overwhelming me with “How can God allow this?” How can a loving God take my Aunt Lynn, how can a loving God take my sister a month later when she had just started asking me to pray for her after years of that topic being “off the table”. How can a loving God allow my mom to have brain cancer and my Daddy to endure so much pain and heartbreak watching the love of his life for 45 years suffer when my father has been so faithful. How can my daughter feel like she is not who I know God designed her to be and have in her words “no interest in religion”. How? Why?

When does that peace that passes all understanding come again???

I cried so hard in church Sunday for even questioning God’s plan. I know better, it just seemed easier to be mad at the One who holds the world in His hands. The One who also gave up His life for me to live this one. The One who took the beating for me and felt tremendous pain emotionally and physically and could have stopped it but didn’t because He trusted the Father’s will. Jesus’s love for us is greater than any love known to man. He died so we could live. I must admit the thought of taking my own life was so consuming at one point all I could do was call on the name of Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus! Renew my faith!!! You made me the “strong one” and I have a little girl watching me. I have to be strong for her to know that it isn’t “religion” it is a RELATIONSHIP with the One who created us and knows every tear that we shed, hears every laugh, knows every fear, sees every one of our sins, and STILL pursues our hearts.

I am named by God. I don’t yet know why all this is happening to our family. My prayer this morning was “God, use me to bring YOU glory” “Use me, consume me, and make me who YOU predestined me to be” It must be something big because so many reach out to me for help, with questions, and tell me “I don’t know anyone who has endured as much pain as you have in the last 6 months.. the last 3 years.. how did you get through it.” I wish I could say I am up every morning reading my bible, praying, and just staying rooted in the Word. That would be a lie. Music. Music is what grounds me, hearing Christian music and singing as loud as I can through tears. Praying… Praying for people other than myself and my family. Realizing that we all have something in our lives we are dealing with, not just me. Letting God’s people help instead of saying “no we are ok” but letting them actually help.

Last night I was able to help a friend that is going through what I have already been through and still going through. In that moment, helping someone else navigate through their unknown, I knew. I was named by God, to help others. The only way you can truly help someone, is to have lived through it. I must endure this season, for God’s glory to be revealed.

Till next time friends.