One day you will tell your story of how you overcame the exact thing you’re going through right now. The day will come when you look back on this season of your life and say “With God, I made it through that.”



You will survive. You will overcome. You will make it through this. And guess what honey, your story will become someone else’s survival guide.



This isn’t just about you … this is about the lives that need your example. This is about the people you don’t even know yet who will need to know you made it through so they can have the hope of making it through too.



1 Corinthians 1:9, “God will do this for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” God is the one who will do it, but the story you’ll come out of this with is how you’ll work in partnership with Jesus. Your story will become a survival guide … and it will point straight to Jesus because he’s the only way you’re getting through!



Remember that scripture in Genesis 50:20 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”



What was intended for harm in your life will not harm you forever. You will survive and you will thrive again on the other side. Then everything you went through will be used to save others. They will not be hopeless because your story will be a beacon of hope.



Don’t you understand you have been trusted with this hardship to reveal God’s glory in the details and His faithfulness in the darkness. If you’re on the other side of the darkness now, look back. Someone is standing in that darkness today who needs the example of your light. A light that points to the only true help there is … Jesus!



If you battled infertility, there’s a desperate woman yearning for a baby who needs to know you too battled and you made it through. She needs to know how God worked everything together for good.



If you survived an ugly divorce, there’s a family today being torn apart by the fighting and words that cut like a knife. They need to know it doesn’t have to be this way. God is the source of peace in that storm.



If you were once pacing the floors wondering how on earth you were going to make it through those hard years with your wayward son or daughter, and now that child is an adult making their way in the world successfully despite their wreckless path to get there, let me tell you there’s a mama who needs to know she’s not the screw up of all screw ups and she’s not alone in this. They need to know how God can use everything that was so totally wrong and use it for something right.



What you went through cannot be wasted. Use it for good now. If you’re on the other side, use your story to help someone else. You have a story of God doing things only he could do … a story of pieces eventually coming together … a story of healing and redemption … a story of survival and now thriving … who is your story helping now?



And if you’re not yet there, let me share some light with you because I know what it’s like to feel like God isn’t doing a darn thing in response to your prayers. I know what it feels like to see everything keep getting worse. I know what it feels like to have to pick yourself up to try and live another day when everything in you just wants to give up.



And here’s what I can tell you on the semi-sorta other side of that … God is doing things you cannot see right now. He is working behind the scenes and in unknown places.