* My friend and fellow writer, Ashley Wells, has created an ebook out of a difficult season of her life. I can relate to what she shares for more than one reason, and I thought you could too. Below are her words about how God a yearning in her heart into a different desire fulfilled in ways she never could have imagined.*
In the midst of the most difficult journey of my life, I rediscovered God was much bigger than I had ever imagined. He was with me and carrying me through my journey. There was some One to rescue me.
After feeling hurt and isolation because of infertility, God, by His wonderful grace, opened my eyes to the fact that He had a plan for me and for my future. He was guiding me through.
I didn’t know all of His plans for my life (and I still don’t), nor do I understand why He had led me through my personal valley.
However, in the midst of my journey God planted a seed, a God-sized dream, that would grow in my heart and bloom this summer.
The God-sized dream that He planted in my heart was that He was going to use my story to encourage other women in the midst of their suffering. God would use my hurt and experience to help others going through hard times too.
When I first felt the reality of this God-sized dream, I pushed it aside. How could I possibly help others when I feel like I am drowning? Lord, this just can’t be true!
I remember when I started to feel whole again. I remember learning to trust Him again. I started reading God’s Word more faithfully. I developed a stronger prayer life. I started giving Him my anxieties, worries, and stress. I gave Him my infertility. I put it in His hands. I started to trust Him no matter the outcome.
I began to find healing. I felt steady again, resting in His hands.
Now here I am. God has been guiding me beyond the valley (though, still childless) for about two years. That seed, the God-sized dream, bloomed this year as I wrote my journey. As I shared my story of how God had led me every step.
Sharing wasn’t easy. As I began to write, I felt like I was not spiritual enough, or had not experienced this trial the “right way” (like there is a right way!), or that I had suffered too much and too deeply for good to come from sharing.
Yet slowly I began rejoicing as I continued to write my story because after I shared about my hurt, I got to share about the hope that I had found.
Even more so, I am now rejoicing as women are reading my story and finding hope in God. Hope in the midst of the midst of the valley. Hope in the midst of suffering. Hope in the midst of this sin-tainted world.
Only a God-sized dream can lead a hurt and wounded woman to share her story to help other hurt and wounded women! What a wonderful God we have that He uses us in these ways!
How has God used a hurt in your life to help bring healing to others?
–Ashley Wells, author of How My Soul Yearns
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