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jcrayonbox · 6 years

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Thankful for Pain: Thanksgiving ‘18

Today, I am thankful our God is a redeemer. I am thankful for brokenness that has been redeemed through God’s mercy.

The bible is a story of ultimate human redemption through Jesus, but within it are many smaller redemption stories.

Hagar is a servant of Sarah who gets chosen to produce an heir for Abraham. Later Sarah produces her own son and sends Hager away. God instructs Hagar to return, after promising she will be the mother of great nations. Ruth becomes a widow shortly after marriage and travels to a distant land hoping to find security. Her benefactor in marriage ultimately places her in Jesus’ ancestry.

My own story of redemption has finally come to fruition after years of hardship. In the last several years everything about my life has turned upside down and inside out. Three years ago I made the decision to leave a job that looked great on paper, but was toxic in reality. In choosing to leave I also chose less money, believing my own happiness would be worth the downgrade. My next job turned out to be equally as toxic, if not more so. Due to my decreased income I found myself stuck. I convinced myself that the devil you know is better than the mystery of what could be. Believing I had no other option I stayed there too long.

Finally it got to be too much and I changed jobs again, with another decrease in income. I did whatever I could to make extra income in addition to my job for nearly two years, all while struggling in yet another toxic working environment. I began to think I was the common denominator and that something was wrong with me.

It turns out losing two dreams in as many years is hard, and caused me to lose hope, joy, and trust in God. I was so exhausted that I could not see more than the day I was living, and each day was miserable. I hated my jobs and struggled to get through each day. The small piece that got me through my darkest moments was the belief that eventually my luck would change. I believed something had to happen to break the pattern, and believed I deserved better than the crappy hand I had been dealt.

The fateful day of change caught me by surprise in April when I ran into a former colleague, who would later offer me a job interview. Three months of hopeful waiting between the interview and first day of work were torture, but I finally felt something shifting. I knew my time had come and I just had to be patient.

While all of this was happening, my family was going through personal turmoil as well. As a family unit we had been dealing with the realities of drug and alcohol addiction for more than a year when I quit my job. I felt like I didn’t belong to my family anymore. My role as the fixer and leader shattered. I did not know who I was.

For years prior, it felt like an implosion had been building, which I can only recognize in hindsight. I remember the day the rug was pulled out from under me. After celebrating Mother’s Day, I found out that my sister was going to rehab. My baby sister, the most unbreakable of all my siblings, was facing her own demons and I could do nothing to fix her. I was the one that always fixed everything, but I could not fix this.

I would never wish addiction on anyone, but our family has been through it together. We have come out the other side closer and stronger than ever. God redeemed my broken family and put us back together again. He made a family out of something that was never truly whole.

That was the day my whole life changed. Today, I have multiple siblings in recovery, and I have learned how to be their sister instead of their mother. I just get to be part of the family, and praise Jesus, it is not my job to fix anyone.

What is my job now? Happily, my new job is in the drug and alcohol field working in recovery. My job is to work with families today and help put them back together. I would never have imagined that this would be my life now. My job challenges me every day to face my beliefs about people, their choices, their beliefs, their struggles, and most importantly, the things none of us have control over. Today, I wake up every day and I look forward to my job. I know it might be hard, but I know I am doing a good thing. I get to help people! I feel like I am making a difference and have something valuable to bring to the table.

How great is our God that he could redeem years of struggle and misery into not just a message, but hope for others. So, on this freezing cold Thanksgiving Day, I am grateful for three hard and painful years. I trust in God’s ability to make every moment worthwhile, and I trust that no matter what happens I will be okay. God redeems me. I know he did not bring on my suffering, but that he was with me through it all. Even when I felt like I could not go on another day, he was there. My suffering has been redeemed, and for that I thank God. My redeemer lives!

Psalm 107:2

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble.

Happy Thanksgiving!

#RedeemingGod #MyRedeemerLives #RedemptionStory

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