Faith is a lifelong journey. And I’m not gonna lie to you… life isn’t always going to be easy. There are different seasons of highs and lows we go through in life. I think I found that out the hard way this past year. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be injured and miss out on my first year as a college athlete, not being able to do the one thing that I have a true passion and love for. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be getting my heart broken by the boy I loved so much. And never in a million years would I have thought that my grandma would be diagnosed with cancer and die within that year. But as much as it sucks, God ALWAYS uses our pain for His glory and His purpose. Not to get too sad or dramatic haha. But seriously, this is what I’ve come to realize over the past year:
1. I sort of had the idea that I wanted to become an athletic trainer before I tore my ACL, but looking back, I now realize that being injured was almost like a confirmation from God that this is where He wants me in His plan for me (for now anyways). This experience has made me so much more mentally, emotionally, and physically tougher. And not only that, but when I am older and treating my own patients, I will have gone through the EXACT same thing as them, and really be able to relate to what their feeling. I have gained a lot of knowledge by being in the training room practically every day at school and witnessing how the trainers perform their jobs, taking mental notes so that I can one day mimic them. Tearing my ACL also brought me to my best friend Veronica. We live 15 minutes apart, went to rival high schools, played for the same soccer club and even had the same coach, and yet we never knew each other until we met one day at the beginning of the school year in the training room. Turns out we had surgery 3 days apart from each other, so we’d be at about the same timeline for recovery (which is about 9 months). Some may deem these as “coincidences”, but I like to call it divine intervention. I believe God placed her in my life, and boy am I sure glad He did. I have no idea where I would be without her, having that person to always push me to succeed in my road to recovery. Whenever I’m feeling down about my circumstances, I look back on all these positive things that come from this situation and remind myself it is ALL in God’s timing and for His Glory. 2. I’m not gonna lie, getting your heart broken REALLY sucks. Like there’s no way to even explain that type of pain. I guess you have to experience it for yourself to really know what I’m talking about. So anyways, I remember thinking that it was the end of the world and I had no idea how I was going to continue going on with life. There were times where I doubted I would genuinely ever be happy again. Looking back, I can see how ridiculous this all sounds, although at the time they were genuine feelings. While it sucked, going through the pain and heartache only brought me closer to God and made me stronger as an individual. I’ve come to learn that my JOY and my WORTH comes from God and God alone. My identity is not found in others. Not from some boy. From Jesus. That pain has taught me how to truly learn to love myself, despite my brokenness, knowing that God says, “You are all together BEAUTIFUL my darling; there is no flaw in you.” -Song of Songs 4:7. 3. Thirdly, I’ll be talking about my grandmother and how God used her cancer to bring her back to Him. Sometimes people say, “Well everything happens for a reason” when they are trying to be sympathetic with people who are going through a rough time in their life. That is not a valid statement, because not everything happens for a reason. God doesn’t make “bad things” happen to good people—that’s not in His nature. That’s not who He is. Our God is love and goodness. These “bad things” happen because sin entered the world and Satan is real. However, God sometimes allows us to go through these sufferings because He can use the pain to bring us back to Him and for His Glory, which is exactly what He did in my grandma’s case. She was raised Christian but stopped attending church and never really had that relationship with Christ in her adulthood. However, I noticed she grew more open and willing to reignite her relationship with Christ these past few years. In January of 2017, she was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer. As the cancer progressed, I noticed little changes within her, such as suggesting praying before meals, and beginning to openly speak about her faith, just to name a few examples. By the time she moved into a hospice home in October, there was a clear and distinct change in her relationship with Christ. Even when she was in pain and fighting to hold onto life, she remained JOYFUL and HOPEFUL. As family and friends came to visit her, they were the ones who ended up leaving uplifted. She was always cracking jokes and SO full of love. She passed away in November, but there is no doubt in my mind that she is now sitting face to face with Jesus and that I will one day see her again. I truly believe that as disgusting and terrible as cancer is, God was able to use her weakness to bring her back to Him. My favorite Bible verse is 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 and it says, “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Paul DELIGHTS in hardships. Huh. That’s a funny way to deal with the crap that happens to us. We don’t know what his “thorn in his flesh” was. Some suggest it was a spiritual problem (anxiety, sexual temptation, or maybe guilt). Others think it was a physical ailment (headaches, epilepsy, eye problems, etc.) And still some think he was referring to his frequent persecutions. Whatever the case may be, in the midst of trials and suffering, we may feel like God isn’t working things out the way He should. Paul realized that often the Lord doesn’t “fix” situations because it is through pain that God can work out His plans. Hosea 6:1 says, “He has torn us to pieces but He will heal us; He has injured us but He will bind up our wounds.” And the point of all of this is not to get all sad and depressing, but to show you that being Christian doesn’t promise life will always be perfect and easy. On the contrary, we are almost guaranteed to be faced with hardships. BUT we can have hope in knowing that God will 100% always provide. And THAT’S what it means to be a Christian. There will be days that are difficult with school or sports or work. And that’s totally okay. But we can’t let those difficulties shake our faith. It’s up to us to whether or not we want to place our trust in Him. God is ALWAYS going to be there for us with arms wide open. He loves us infinitely more than we could ever think of. Imagine all the ice cream, dogs, sunshine, laughter, rainbows, chocolate chip cookies, sunny days, flowers, and love in the world. Now take that, multiply it by a million, and that’s still only a fraction of how much God loves you. All He wants is for you to draw near to Him. You just have to make that first step.
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