“Every time the pain of what’s been done ‘to’ you gets triggered, intentionally start thinking about what God has done ‘for’ you. Because what’s been done for you is greater than what’s been done to you.”

~Kyle Idleman, Grace is Greater

As we celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, this Easter, I am reminded of why He died on Calvary’s cross and eternally grateful that we have been set free from sin and made alive in Christ by His resurrection. 

Sometimes we may look at ourselves and the markings of our past sins and become overwhelmed with thoughts of doubt about our God and His forgiveness but scripture says our sins were nailed to the cross with him on that first Good Friday! He did the work on the cross out of love for His children, our job is belief.

Believe me, I thought I had gotten myself trapped in something from which I would never be free but, oh, how I underestimated just what God can do!

My life, in all candor, was a bit of a mess. I had just been through a horrific divorce, coming out of a 20-year relationship/marriage that almost destroyed my life. The relationship was one of personal destruction that was filled with excessive drinking, drugs, infidelities, and no spiritual guidance. God was not the center of my life or my marriage.

Despite all that, I was so emotionally trapped in this life, in that marriage, in the toxic relationship with my in-laws, but at the time, I didn’t want the marriage to end. That may seem crazy but I had been divorced once before and I never wanted me or my children to have to go through that pain again. I didn’t want to be a “double statistic” of being divorced twice and the same of another failed marriage that went with all of it. This second marriage was a life filled with undeniable sin and heartache that I wanted to be free of and to be healed mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

I just didn’t know where or how to find that.

I floundered and spun out of control for a long time. But God saved me from the grips of Satan’s hands. He had sent Jesus to die on the cross to save us all and at the moment I accepted Jesus as my savior and turned away from my sin, the veil over my eyes and over my heart lifted.

The clarity was staggering. I could see how I had loved and had pursued all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. 

I thought I could be “captain of my ship” and could chart my own course to find true peace and joy. 

That peace and joy was elusive and the harder I tried to control life in the acquisition of the peace and joy I desired; the harder things became. It was a vicious cycle and a lonely existence. A cycle that always led me back to my sin nature, climbing into a bottle to numb the pain.

Fast forward 4 years to 2017

Broken and seeking something I didn’t know how to find or recognize, God kept tugging at my heart in the direction of church. I began attending Southeast Christian and kept coming back Sunday after Sunday.  Each week, God lovingly and relentlessly began peeling the sin, the pain, and the scars away from my heart. He transformed my heart into something that began seeking His peace and joy rather than the world’s version of it.

Having said that, there were still many times I didn’t want to get out of bed on a Sunday morning and go to church. God was relentless those moments as well as I would feel His nudge. 

I was relentless in asking God why He continued to put Southeast Christian on my heart. Why was He so intent on sending me to a Bible Study group where I didn’t feel welcome, where I didn’t feel as though I fit? 

I couldn’t see what God was doing. BUT. I got out of bed each Sunday and just kept going. 

It was about this time I first noticed Tony, another attendee at Southeast Christian. I didn’t know it then but God was working and it was about to become clear to me why God’s hand was pushing me out of bed every Sunday. 

God knew why I needed to be at Southeast Christian; He knew the peace and joy I was seeking was mine to the accepting if I surrendered my life to Him and trusted that His plans were much greater than mine. 

When I met Tony at our church, I knew nothing about him. I do remember being hung over from a night of drinking (old habits and all that). I was still hanging out with old friends who were a bad influence on me, I was still feeling empty inside and, well, it didn’t take long for my sin nature to take over.

The emptiness, the old habits, the bad influences around me was exactly what Tony talks about today to the men we mentor who suffer from addiction: “When you take our eyes off of God your sin nature creeps in and you soon fall away and go back to your old ways. You can’t go back to your old lives. You have to change your surroundings and your friends. You have to stay connected to God’s Word.”

That was certainly true of me then.

Tony began discipling me from the moment we met and that made an impression on me. Discipling was something I had never experienced before. I never had a spiritual leader in my life, someone who cared about my salvation first. 

I remember thinking, “This man has a heart for Jesus. If I could just have what he has, everything will be okay.”

I couldn’t put my finger on what it was I was seeking at the time but now I know what I was dealing/struggling with back then was a heart issue – sin – and that I was seeking freedom…  the kind of freedom that can only be found through a relationship with Christ. 

Tony and I had that in common. He too was a broken person but his brokenness had found him serving nearly four decades behind prison walls. It was in 2012 when Tony finally surrendered and sought God with all his heart.

As the relationship between Tony and me quickly developed, we knew God’s hand was moving in our lives. 

We married in September 2017. I laid my drinking habits at the cross on December 16th and, in January 2018, God called Tony into ministry, leaving the workforce to serve the Lord full-time. Five months later, I felt the Lord calling me to serve alongside my husband and said goodbye to my clients in the world of digital marketing. 

“God has been moving in fast forward” in our lives ever since, as a friend of mine recently commented to a post on my timeline on Facebook. Both Tony and I are grateful that we serve a God whose grace is greater than anything we have done.

When we face trials, it’s an opportunity for us to draw closer to God.

Today, I’m grateful for the pain that I went through because it reminds me of what God has done for me through those storms, and what He did on Calvary’s cross. 

My word of encouragement for you is that if you’re struggling, if you feel trapped in a life or in a circumstance you feel you can never escape, never underestimate what God can and will do when you surrender your life to Him. If you hold fast to God, nothing and no one can pull you from His grip and the plans He has to prosper you.

Rebirth, restoration, and reconciliation is close by and can happen at any time, not just at certain times of year.

It’s a 1 John 4:4 thing.