Wading Through the Wastelands
When Your Life Isn't the Fairy Tale You Expected
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Have you ever looked back over your life feeling regret for poor choices and lost opportunities? Or maybe like me, you also live with remorse over trauma’s collateral damage. You wonder what life would have been like if only you made the right choices, seized the opportunities, and never experienced the trauma and abuse.
You are not alone, and your life is not the only one which failed to turn out as you expected. Trust that God is weaving Hope into your story. I am learning that although my story looks different than I hoped, God still holds the pen and the person I am becoming in this story is resilient, stronger, confident, and compassionate.
At one time I remember telling my husband I wished God gave us a “practice life.” One where we could learn the ropes and make the mistakes. Then we could receive our “real lives” with all that learned experience and live it well the second time.
But the problem with that idea is, even with the learned experience we would probably make many of the same choices and mistakes. We might avoid some pitfalls, but not all. Aside from the unrealistic expectation of living a “perfect life” the second time around, we would deprive ourselves of real personal growth and intimacy with God experienced through trial.
While we all know the story of Job in the bible, our focus tends to rest on his losses and suffering. Most of us will never experience the extent of loss and suffering which Job endured, but his story resonates with us in our own times of loss and suffering.
From the depths of his suffering, Job pleads for God to answer him and help him understand why everything befell him. (Job 31:35-40) God answers Job’s request in chapters 38-41 with a force that transformed Job both as a man and in his perspective towards God.
But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.Job 23:10-NIV
Job’s story holds more than loss and suffering. God reveals the human wrestling necessary within our suffering through Job. Trapped in the chrysalis of suffering, Job experienced transformation both personally and in his relationship with God.
Clothed with the beauty of his suffering, Job becomes intercessor for his friends and a testimony of God’s goodness to his family and friends. Receiving full restoration from God of all he lost, he enjoyed greater blessing from and with God in the latter end of his life. (Job 42)
God redeems every loss and moment of suffering in our lives transforming us into the magnificent image of Christ. Like Job, when we emerge from our own chrysalis of suffering, we bear more if His image and display His glory through our testimony.
In a similar vein, God allowed me to share a part of my own transformation story in a recent essay, “Eden’s Beauty Restored” published in The Way Back to Ourselves Spring Literary Journal. I share about how God is transforming the wastelands of my life, and the unusual object lesson He used to reveal this truth to me. I am grateful to all of the editors,
, , Sarah Steele, and for kindly publishing my essay and photography.Here is an excerpt of my original essay, and the poem that started me thinking about Eden’s Beauty Restored:
It spoke to me more than I wanted to hear, yet no words fell upon my ears. Tears dimmed my eyes, but my heart required no eyesight to see what it had known for many years.
Viewing one of the few remaining photographs from my early teen years, I mused as I had the many times I viewed that photo, on the trepidation pictured on my face. I wondered what imprinted the fear there, did she know what was to come?
The photograph was the final picture taken before my life changed forever.
Staring back at me were eyes filled with hesitancy, as if my younger self both feared being known, while at the same time yearned for connection. She lingered at the margin of the photograph, timid of owning her presence.
While the captured moment betrayed these deeper past truths, it also encapsulated a prophetic truth; soon after my life would become a wasteland. The actual incident matters little, except that it was representative of other incidents and choices rendering my life a desolate place.
The shy beauty barely visible in the photo, my adult heart intuitively knew. It also knew the weighty grief of watching that beauty crushed by malevolence, desperation, and hopelessness.
Though we tend to mythicize our past in recollection, and our memory is tainted by our present, some things surface in harsh clarity. For me, the retrospective view while perhaps imprecise, reveals a stark panorama of unmistakable barrenness.
Once in Eden’s Garden
Her garden once in splendor bloomed,
now left in trampled ruin.
As Eden once in days of yore
when serpent sowed man’s sin,
deep roots and weeds of bitterness
strangled life and hope within.
From despair, the Gardener fashioned
new life to swallow chagrin —
Her garden now in bloom sublime,
love restoring what grace begins.
I pray my essay brings Hope to your story and a deeper trust in God as He continues to work all things for good in redeeming your story and transforming your life. Please also take time to read the other entries in the Journal, as each one displays God’s incomparable beauty.
Due to some unforeseen changes, I am able to open up more slots in my speaking calendar for late spring, summer and fall!
I want to offer my services to my Serenity in Suffering Community. If your church or organization is looking for a speaker for a particular event in the coming months, please consider booking me.
I will bring an encouraging, hope-filled, authentic message or testimony to your group or event, on grief, walking with God through suffering and loss, or any biblical theme of your choice. I am committed to a faithful interpretation of Scripture and will inspire listeners to follow God in deeper intimacy of faith.
Contact me via email at donna@serenityinsuffering.com for more details or to book your event.
Finally…
Catch up at the blog:
When Creation Falls Short-Read HERE
Congratulations on your publication in the literary journal! Beautiful words!
Beautiful essay Donna and yes you speaking what a blessing you will be.