Recently I sat in a conference packed with thirty-somethings, humbled by their meaningful lives. These beautiful women were allowing God to shape their hearts, pure, and intentional. It was a juncture I’d missed, my life much different–my thirties a haze of dysfunction.
It’s hard for me to fathom I turn fifty in a couple months. {The birthday month is April, and I love chocolate and Amazon gift cards if anyone asks.} I used to think fifty was old {so very old!}. But there’s this funny thing happening, the closer my birthday draws, oh how much younger I realize fifty really is.
Over the years I have at least learned this, how it’s never too late to make a difference.
Courting five decades does something to a girl. As the years pass, I’m feeling a little more philosophical and introspective, a little more willing to look at the person I’ve been, the person I am, and the person I’m becoming. I now know I’ve been too hard on that person I was. If not for her, I would have no story. She taught me so much about life—hard things, yes, but some great things, too. And one of the most valuable things she taught me was that God wants to use me.
Read When A Woman Finds Her Voice, Chapter Nine, The Silent Many.
Read 2 Corinthians 1.
God wants to use me.
The God of no beginning, whose existence will never end, the One who established the world with his wisdom, the God who could, with a flick of his finger, cast off demons—he chooses to use me to fulfill a unique purpose in this world.
To think God could somehow take this crazy chaos-driven, mixed up mess of mine and weave it into his perfect plan still leaves me shaking my head most days.
He wants to do the same with you, you know.
I’m learning this, how there’s no limit to what God can do with a surrendered heart, how he plants this seed of hope that grows bigger and bigger and bigger, until it becomes bigger than any circumstance we face.
There is a divine Hope that lies within our hurts.
God uses the broken heart of one
to mend the brokenness of another,
uses me to help you, uses you to help me.
This God-centered pain changes the world,
one woman at a time.
There’s a reason I’m so open about my story, why I share this heart wide, pouring out my past vulnerable and red. I do it with the pure hopes that something about my life will offer a validity that connects me with you. It’s my resume of sorts. When I share the hurts of life I’ve walked through, you know that I’ve seen and understand much pain but I’ve made it through. You also learn how I want you free from these hurts of life—emotionally whole and living a life of joy. And when I challenge you to a different way of living, you understand it’s not some Pollyanna-esque response for something I really don’t understand. I really do get it.
And more than any of that, hopefully you understand how I hold heart-close this genuine desire to see your life changed, to see hope bloom fresh in your dry places.
This is how God designed us, our story of healing with the potential to unlock hopeless hearts, our own experiences serving as a compass for others. As others witness God’s hand in our lives, they want to know more about him.
This is the power of sharing our stories, this hope that leaks from the pain of our past.
How about you? What tends to block you from letting go of the past and pressing into the future God has for you? What life experiences could be “resume-builders” that would help you advocate for others who have gone through similar hurts? Please share with us in the comments section below.
{Find more encouragement with Jo Ann’s recently released book, When A Woman Finds Her Voice: Using Your Story to Make a Difference.}