But You, O LORD, are a shield for me,
My glory and the One who lifts up my head.
Psalm 3:3

I was reading through the psalms with my sister one day and we started to discuss the significance of this verse. She said it reminded her of a child. When a child is ashamed, sad or hopeless, their head hangs. She imagined a father lifting up the head of the child as a way to comfort or reassure them of his love.

Was there ever a time you felt like this?

One of the most pivotal parts of my testimony was when I was a young teenager, around thirteen or fourteen, and my aunt passed away from cancer. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through. My aunt had been struggling for a few years with cancer they found when she was pregnant with her 4th child. Of course, my whole family began praying for her healing. There were times when she was well enough to go do things and spend time with us; there were also times when she was too weak. However, we all believed God could heal her.  I remember my mom fasted for a while because that’s what she felt like God told her to do.

My faith was passionate: I wanted to see the power of God here on earth.  I wanted to believe it didn’t just happen in the Bible, that the things that were written in scripture of who God was were still true and that He could do those same things now. We clung to the verse that “if your faith is as small as a mustard seed you can move a mountain” (Mat 17:20) and the verse “I believe but help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). I really truly believed everything in the Bible about who God is and wanted to not just know it in my head but see it with my own eyes.

For many years we prayed begging God to heal my Aunt Sharon. One day we went to my grandparents’ house for our Easter reunion and were told that she was admitted to the hospital and was not doing well at all. We prayed even more fervently that whole weekend, but by Easter Sunday as my family left to go home, we knew it would be soon that we would be back.

I remember standing in my grandparents’ bathroom upstairs sobbing, pouring my heart out before the Lord.  I begged Him once again to not take my aunt, for the sake of her children she was leaving behind, for the sake of her family, for the sake of my faith. I knew the true reason why my heart was breaking, and it was because for all these years of praying for my aunt, somehow my faith had got tied up in her healing: If she died, so would my faith.

We made it home and not long after we got the phone call.  She was gone.   We packed our bags and went back to Pennsylvania.

The rest of that year was chaos. My grandfather passed in the fall and my uncle was in a horrible car accident and should not have made it, though he did.  He lived. It took years of recovery, and he’s still not the same. But he lived.

Somehow, even after seeing all the miracles performed in my uncle’s life, not just for his physical body but for his family and finances, my faith still seemed dead.  It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God or anything like that; I truly believed He did not care about me or hear my prayers. Even with my uncle I believed it was everyone else’s prayers, not mine. God cared about everyone else except me.

For years after, even growing in little things here and there in my understanding of God and life and my own identity, part of me still seemed dead. There were times when I felt relief from the pain and was happy. I sought after the Lord, asking for Him to show me who He was. I asked Him to speak to me, and to have personal relationship with me. I longed for something deeper with God, but even as I grew and learned different things my struggles just kept crashing me. I was passionate about telling people about the Lord; but then, on the flip side, I felt like a hypocrite, like I didn’t know what I was talking about. This was mainly because I didn’t trust Him, and I had not for a long time. I wanted people to love God. I wanted people to be on fire for Him like I was; yet I didn’t truly love Him myself and I wasn’t truly on fire for Him.

I was sinking deeper and deeper into confusion, blinded by who I felt God needed to be and not seeing who He actually was. I graduated high school and worked a couple different jobs, and life just kept not being what I wanted it to be. I was jealous of how other people’s lives moved on in the way that I wanted. They were getting married and having their own families. They got to have a life they loved, and I grew to hate mine.

I was angry at God for making me live in this life, a life I never asked for nor cared to have. Strangely enough, I’d always seen my life as simple and easy compared to some others. I had a good loving family. I had everything I needed. My family never suffered need of any kind; in fact, we felt quite blessed. My parents had both grown up with less than I had. So what was wrong with my life?

I just felt stuck. Stuck in the same place I’d always been my whole life, seeing the same things, getting bored. Stuck with jobs I didn’t care to have and that were scaring me. Stuck with a faith that was hanging by a thread, and nothing was helping or fixing it. Stuck with a God I saw moving and working in everyone’s lives and speaking to them, yet had abandoned me. Stuck in the same old mundane life. I was going stir crazy and felt like a caged lion ready to explode at anyone. The last job I had left me feeling worthless and like a failure. I went through a whole season of depression, even though I didn’t know that’s what it was.

But God…

God had not abandoned me. He had heard my cries. He had seen my pain, and He had a plan. God started to open up opportunities for me, that I had prayed for over many years. I ended up in a discipleship community that surrounded me and began pouring truth into my life.

I remember there was a teaching I was sitting through one day called “The Father Heart of God”, which we ended by taking communion. I don’t really remember what the teacher said or much of what happened, I just remember staring at the communion elements and realizing once again I couldn’t take it: my heart wasn’t right. It never really had been since my aunt passed away.

God started to reveal to me that I had hatred in my heart; not hatred just for anyone but for God Himself. Hatred because He didn’t do what I wanted Him to do. He didn’t heal my aunt. He didn’t give me the life I’d asked for. He didn’t do the things I wanted Him to do, the way that I wanted Him to do them. I hated Him. You might have asked the same question I kept asking myself for those many years: “How can a Christian who loves God, hate Him as well?” I don’t know, but that’s what I was doing.

I grabbed my mentor and left the room. I began to explain to her what God had revealed to me, and began to weep. I had so much shame, so much pain, and so much anger. So much anger. That day He began to touch every part of my heart that was broken. As I wept and screamed at Him, He began to heal my heart. I still can’t say that everything is fixed and that there’s no pain left, that I am completely and fully healed… I’m not. There’s still a part of me that doesn’t know how to trust the Lord, and still part of me that gets angry with Him. There is still part of me that gets confused and doesn’t understand.

But God…

I don’t know where I would be now if He had left me where I was. You can imagine going back to how broken I was back then, but I have learned so much since then. He’s continuing to show me who I am, as His child, His princess, His warrior and His bride. He is continuing to show me what His love looks like and it’s insanely lavish. He’s continuing to show me where my heart isn’t right and where I don’t trust Him, but He has been walking with me every step of the way. He is teaching me how to give those parts of my heart to Him and let Him be the one to work on them; not just telling Him what I want done and demanding Him to do it, like I did back then, but instead He’s showing me how to trust Him in the process of what He wants it to look like, how he wants me to be more like Him.

Believe me, it has not been easy; there have been some very hard things I’ve had to walk through, but I can honestly tell you they have been the best decisions I’ve ever made, to walk through those things with God. I am truly a different person today because of it.
He has lifted my head and taken my shame, my pain, and my hopelessness, and has comforted my heart just like the Father He is.

Are you in a place of deep hopelessness? Don’t give up. God will come. He is good and faithful.

If you have a story of your own you would like to share with us, please write it in the comments. We would love to hear it.