I was feeling despondent and didn’t know why. Then it occurred to me that scenes of war and enemy takeover have triggered memories from my own past. I grew up in the midst of political unrest and hearing my mother describe the wave of refugees fleeing, her being one of them. I lived her moments of near death and survival as she recounted the details of being the one to leave with nothing but one suitcase so someone could be on the outside to send help back to the family. Sometimes I wonder if the courage I felt in my own life to sacrifice for the greater cause to invest in the future of God’s daughters was already in my DNA, inherited from my mother. In God’s perfect plan, did He give me a background that perfectly aligned with His purpose?

What a reminder that we were designed to lose our stories to serve His. The alternative is to be oblivious to God’s story and to make life all about our own pain. I see God’s biblical pattern for fruitfulness repeated throughout the Bible. Decrease to increase, die to self to bear fruit, be last as God’s way to be first. In my flesh, I recycle my own pain and feel myself suffocating. When I choose to die to my flesh so the power of Christ can live through me, I become like a drowning person who breaks through the barrier to fill my lungs with air. So today I exhale pain and I inhale the life of Christ that overflows from me, to bring God’s truth and healing to the world!

Love, Anita