I’ve spent a great deal of my life running from God. Whether I realized it or not—and I’m not sure if I was unaware of what His will was, or whether I cared. Maybe I’d never truly considered it. But for a long time I was sure that whatever His will was, He certainly didn’t care for me. And if He did—He only wanted to punish me.
The truth is, I wanted Him to punish me. And for a long time, I punished myself for Him.
Time Away
After my relapse, I spent the better part of a year away from home living in a trap house. I was terrorized there. Words don’t exist in the English language to properly convey what I mean by that. And if they did exist, I wouldn’t use them. So suffice it to say, I was terrorized.
I’d tried to kill myself a handful of times. To put myself out of my own misery, which I knew I’d caused myself. Each time I was unsuccessful, and I knew it was because I didn’t deserve the relief of death. What I deserved was to continue suffering the way I had been, maybe for the rest of my life.
But God “causes all things to work together for good to those who love [Him]” (Romans 8:28).
Before the Trials
Before I relapsed, I’d only recently started going to church. In the interest of full transparency, I slept through most of the sermons. And mostly I was going for the sake of my kids. And given my history and what I had been going through with my divorce and custody battles, a friend urged me into Biblical Counseling.
I didn’t make it much longer. Very rapidly I dropped out of counseling, stopped going to church, and relapsed. From the time I relapsed until the time I lost literally everything—my kids, my home, my family, my job, my care, everything—was two weeks.
No Temptation
But just before that, during my intake for Biblical Counseling, I was assigned a Bible verse to commit to memory. 2 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overcome you, except that which is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (NIV).
I don’t remember much from my sessions, or my homework. But I remember this verse. And when I started round 2 of Biblical Counseling after I came home, the memory came flooding back like a wave sweeping me away.
I remember wondering where was my way out, all that time I spent in what I still to this day will refer to as Hell on earth?
But remember, God will give us over to the lusts of our hearts (Romans 1:24). And God uses tragedy for good.
Trial and Error
When I got hit by the car, I had already been welcomed back home just one week prior. And still, I left again. I thought I wasn’t ready yet, though everything in me wanted to leave. I was terrified. And overwhelmed. And so, so far from God.
I’d tried half-heartedly to get into detox. I didn’t know what to do. Then I got hit by a car.
I remember screaming at the EMTs, “I wish they had just killed me. Why didn’t they just kill me?” But I didn’t even deserve the relief of death.
And when I came to, I continued on with that mentality.
A Start in the Right Direction
It wasn’t until I truly made it back home—fallen to my knees, begging to come home, desperate to do whatever it would take—that it all started to fall into place.
And when I returned to Biblical Counseling, just about a month after returning to church, a couple of months after being home, I came across that verse again. 1 Corinthians 10:13. No temptation. And I laughed a bit to myself. “Here we go again.”
But then, I read more. I read the whole chapter. And I saw something I didn’t remember seeing the first time around. 1 Corinthians 10:12 says, “so if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!”
It had been staring me in the face the whole time. God was practically throwing warning in my face. And still, I didn’t see.
Because I wasn’t ready.
But God
That’s when it hit me. And I realized that all the awful, horrifying things I’d been through over the last year—God was always right beside me. He never left me. He never forsook me. I forsook Him. I left Him. But God—God remained faithful. And more than that, God used evil for good. All that evil. So much evil. He used it for good—for my good, and for His glory.
Because He chose me, before the foundation of the world He set me apart for His good works. God used it for good, “to those who are called according to His purpose.”
And if God can bring me through all of that, and use all of that for my good, and for His good works, there’s nothing He can’t bring me through. There’s nothing He can’t bring any of us through.
All there is left to ask is this: “What will God will today?” Whatever it is, I will.
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Emily is a Christian mother and blogger who lives in sunny Florida with her three children. She works full-time setting appointments at a home remodeling company and in her scarce free time she enjoys serving her fellow brothers and sisters in Christ however possible, and spending as much time in prayer, Bible reading and studying, and fellowship as possible. As a recovering addict, she has a heart for addiction ministry, and for creating things so she can give back to those who have need.