Seventeen years ago, I packed up my bags, flew to Jamaica and started what I thought would be the next big missionary story – miracles performed, hearts won for Christ – a genuine life of faith and freedom. 

If I’m being honest, my marching tune at that time might have sounded something like, “Come on God, get on board, we’ve got souls to save!”

I’m sure I prayed about it. I’m sure many of my motives were genuine and honest. I’m sure I thought I was ready for whatever God had in store for me next. What I didn’t know, though, was that this would be the beginning of a deep unraveling in my life. An unraveling of pride, an unraveling of self-righteousness, and an unraveling of my own plans and purposes.

In some ways, I want to tell you every single detail of the last 17 years so that you understand. And in other ways I want to share with you absolutely nothing at all so that you won’t be able to judge me. For me, this is a scary endeavor – partially because I’m struggling to find the words, and partially because my heart is still so tender to all the loss. To be sure, others have faced quite a lot more suffering than I have, but I don’t think I need to compare at this time. It’s been hard. It’s been very hard these last several years. 

So I will do my best and say this – there were parts of these last years that have broken my mind, broken my heart, and broken my body.

Dramatic? Perhaps.

True? Only God knows how true that statement really is.

There have been times over this span of years when I have felt absolutely nuts – I’m talking take me to the looney bin, nuts. There have also been times where I thought grief would swallow me whole, and times when I’ve been so physically weak that I asked God one night if I was actually dying.

Honesty, I have felt lost more often than not these last 17 years and at some point I started wondering if it was all my fault. I started asking questions like Where did I go wrong? Does God really guide us? Did I hear Him wrong? Is He playing tricks on me? Can I really trust this whole pray-and-move-forward-in-faith process? I’ve always tried to do the right thing and go in the directions I felt God was leading, but eventually the cracks in my faith began to grow wider with every failed plan, every new grief, and every inch of lost ground with my health.

I felt trapped.

I felt trapped in my body, too weak to function, trapped in a life growing too heavy and too hard to handle, trapped in what felt like a never ending detour that kept spidering and taking me further and further from what felt whole and safe and understandable.

I felt hopeless.

Then came the advice, comments, and concerns from other people. Some of it was helpful. Some of it was hurtful. Most of it was out of a deep love for God, and for this young woman slowly withering away before them. It was all so confusing. Was I being stubborn? Was I caught in sin? Was I drowning in a sea of my own making?

God, is this all your fault or my fault?

This thought often swirled through my head as I processed the making of a new and smaller lifeI wasn’t prepared for. People often tell me these days that I’m not who I used to be. For them, they’re referring to the adventurous girl who always laughed and traveled and hiked and showed up for any event. Now they look at my life and wonder if I’m slowly missing out on all of it. I go to bed early. I sit in a recliner on Saturdays. And I’ve dwindled my life down to a quiet routine that feels somewhat manageable, most days.

In some ways, I have the personality for a quieter life. I enjoy slow mornings and quiet afternoons. But what they don’t understand sometimes is that I’m struggling with a fatigue that feels almost impossible to manage. What started as a moment sitting in my car, tears streaming down my face because I was so desperately tired, led to a debilitating season of insomnia which culminated in daily fatigue so complete that I’m having to lay down and rest after simple tasks like trying on a handful of clothes. My doctor calls it burn out. Others have wondered if it’s depression. I call it torture. But I think God calls it His faithful affliction.

With the help of a friend, I finally found the courage to ask God for clarity, for Him to break through the cloud of darkness and provide a guiding light.

Days passed with no answer. A week or more passed with still no answer.

Then in the quietness of a sleepless night I read Psalm 119:73-75:

Your hands have made and fashioned me.

Give me understanding that I may understand your commandments.

Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice because I have hoped in your word.

I know, oh Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness, you have afflicted me.

A wave of relief and despair washed over me that night. I finally realized maybe it wasn’t all my fault and perhaps this detour was more intentional than I thought. Yet if it wasn’t all my fault, I also began to realize that it might not be entirely within my power to fix. King Solomon penned the words of my deepest fears at that time, “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?” Ecclesiastes 7:13.

One thing I’ve begun to realize about my own faith and the Christian culture I experience around me is that suffering is always meant to be temporary – or so we think. Maybe a small slap on the wrist until we repent or pray for guidance, or we endure for a little while as God moves all the pieces together for our very own happily-ever-after.

I don’t always see this in scripture, though.

In fact, I see suffering more often than not. I see it so often that I’m beginning to wonder if suffering might be one of God‘s greatest kindnesses and means of bringing us to Him and making us more like Him.

Most days I would rather avoid this suffering and do life without God – or at least His plans that I don’t like. I generally just want God to get on board with my plans and purposes, while coddling my little sins and pretending like I’ve got it altogether. But I think God wanted more from my life, so He started the unraveling process.

Suffering hurts.

Suffering sometimes feels like it might swallow us whole in one big gulp.

Suffering sometimes crushes every bone, every hope, and even the little twinkle in our eyes.

But suffering also has a way of changing us for the better if we yield to God through it.

The truth is, there are things you can only learn through suffering. The people in my life are right, I am a different person and some days I miss so desperately who I used to be on the outside – I was thinner, more fun, and far more helpful. But what God is showing me is that I’m also being changed on the inside.

I’m confessing sin sooner and more completely than I ever used to. I’m learning a level of contentment my busy schedule would never have allowed. I’m finding hope in scriptures I never understood before. I’m finding a deeper level of faith that would be impossible to find without weakness. I’m experiencing a level of peace that I had never known before. I am learning to pray – oh how much I am learning to pray.

There are many days when I am still burdened with sadness for all the things I’m missing out on. I’ve cried many tears over the many events I’ve had to say “no” to, the early bedtimes that have dwindled some of my favorite relationships, and the neverending cycles of feeling like I’m letting down the people I love most. But when I look back on the last 17 years, there are moments when I can say, I like who I am becoming on the inside better than who I was on the outside all those years.

That’s a tough statement to make because I feel so stranded and lonely some days. A sweet friend once told me, though, that as humans we like to build our lives up like little shacks. We pound our nails into our two-by-fours and accomplish a little shelter with a small breeze passing through. We want everything to be quick and easy and without struggle. But God wants to build a cathedral in our lives. He wants to take years, sometimes decades, to fine-tune our hearts, strengthen our faith, and make our lives focus more on eternity, all for our good and His glory. He wants to do a deep work in our hearts and lives that imprints the handiwork of a faithful God.

I truly don’t know what God is up to most days in life, and I still often stumble into despair. Some days still feel purposeless. Some days I still feel useless. Some days I still mourn the life I had before this painful detour. But then I see my heart. The sins He’s rooted out, the fear He’s exchanged with peace, the compassion that’s grown for those who are suffering. Annoyingly, the detour keeps on detouring, but I think what I’m realizing is that I’m actually not lost and I’ve never been alone. Whether it's my fault or not, my faithful God has intentionally led me here, and He will lead me home. For this life, and all its sufferings and blessings, point us to an eternal home, “so we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our  inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

So while I don’t know all the details, I do know my heart is being changed for eternity – that sounds like something only a faithful God would do.