I remember the day she said it. Eyes puffy from the wailing, I sat as she whispered truth into my heart. Just moments before I had stood at the door as he walked away, casting 10 years of marriage casually aside for the arms of another. The pain pressed so deep that it was hard to breathe. Fear threatened my tomorrows and the loneliness fell cold onto the dark of my life.
“You get to choose. Will you grow from this or die from this?”
The circumstances were excruciating and completely out of my control. I was walking this valley. The reality crushed every ounce of hope in that moment. There was nothing that I could do to get out of it. Nothing I could say or think or pray that would change this moment. I was walking this valley.
“You have a choice about one thing,” she promised. “You can choose to grow from this or die from this.”
The truth soothed my broken soul and I made a promise. I didn’t have control over the circumstances. I couldn’t change the fact that he left. But I could set my mind to grow. From that moment, I set my gaze on the only One who could change the destruction of my family and I knew that the change would begin with me. It’s easy to place blame, but that is not God’s purpose. He desires to change everyone involved.
Friend, every valley in our lives has purpose. God is fully sovereign over every moment and He will use this pain to grow our faith. We only need to trust with hands wide open, raised high toward our loving and gracious Father. May we open His word with an eager heart, ready to hear how He wants to change us.
For when He is finished, we will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. Is 61:3
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About Kim Sorgius
“Friend, every valley in our lives has purpose. God is fully sovereign over every moment and He will use this pain to grow our faith. We only need to trust with hands wide open, raised high toward our loving and gracious Father. May we open His word with an eager heart, ready to hear how He wants to change us.”
HOW do you trust in those valleys? What does that look like? In my own valley now, struggling to trust the Lord.