Yesterday, I heard a segment on a Christian radio station that I found very intriguing. The DJ shared the details of a celebrity who had suffered a tremendous loss; I wish I caught all the details, but I didn’t. The bottom line was this person endured horrendous pain and trauma. One year later, as this person was beginning to resurface, someone in the media asked her, what is a question that you wish someone would ask you. This person said, “I wish someone would ask me, ‘who are you now?’
As the DJ rightly pointed out yesterday, pain has a way of
changing us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean for the worst. The listener was invited to call in and offer
their thoughts on their own trauma and pain, and to then answer, as a result of
going through this, ‘who are you now?’ This
segment deeply resonated with me. After
the intense trials I’ve endured in the last 18 months, I actually thought about
calling in, but I was too hungry and tired after a long day, so I didn’t. Even still, God has used these ordeals to
shape and refine me. So what would I have
said if I had called in to that radio station?
I would have said something like this:
'Who am I now? I am
someone who has been consistently storm-tossed, and is better for it! For the last year and a half or so, I’ve been in
the midst of one fiery trial after another.
Someone said something to me that hurt me so deeply, my heart was
shattered into a million pieces. A
physical ordeal put me into a hospital emergency room, near death. There were instances of theft and other
injustices against me. A beloved family
car was totaled after a bad wreck on the highway – unharmed physically, but not
emotionally. On and on I could go with
trials that continue, even to this very moment.
Yet, in the midst of it, God has taught me invaluable lessons.
He taught me to choose to look at life through the prism of
a grateful heart; to applaud others success and achievements, rather than
envying them. He taught me to be
comfortable with who I am, and the path God has called me to walk; not to play
the comparison game, but to remember that everyone’s life journey is different. Thus, every day I now walk in confidence from
the Lord, with my head held high. In the
Bible – Malachi chapter 3 – the Lord is likened to a “refiner’s fire”; it is He
who will “sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver.” It is incredible to me that through these
relentless fires of adversity and pain, God has used it to refine me into a
better version of myself.'
In conclusion, some people suggest that it would be great
to know what is going to happen in the future.
I disagree. To know, in advance,
all of the crushing events that would come upon me would have filled me with
dread. However, that said, if I were
able to tell my past self not only what was going to happen, but also how it
would change me for the better, I’m sure past Kevin would have a hard time
believing it. All I can do in response
is praise and thank God; even in the midst of all of these storms, I feel the
most whole, the most secure, the most confident, that I’ve ever felt
before. This is an absolute miracle to
me!
God bless,
Kevin
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