"For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing."
James 1:2-4
I like to think about the story of Cinderella, I relate to it on sooo many levels...
She was no longer loved and honored, but rejected and abused—a continual outcast in her own home, by the people who were supposed to love and take care of her.
It's one thing to be robbed and cast out, but to have to stay and serve those who robbed you is quite another. To sit and have to watch them enjoying or even mistreating things you cherish would be extremely difficult. And the longing to feel a part of the family, yet never having that longing fulfilled is like experiencing a continual wounding with no time to heal. It would force you to try anything to get them to love you. Yet, the more you would try, the more they would despise you.
Cinderella's had her dress torn to pieces, leaving her in rags. They literally and emotionally stripped her of all she knew and was in life; they left her nothing. She was stunned, emotionally numb, alone and devastated by their actions.
HOWEVER....All that was taken from her and done to her turned out to be the preparation for the fulfillment of her dreams.
She was stripped of all she knew and held dear, but we see in the end that the ill treatment she endured prepared and equipped her for her great destiny.
If you are confused and hurt as I have been, you may even feel at times abandoned by God. What often hurts the most is the continual betrayal by those who should love you, but don't. It hurts to see the hardness of other's toward you as though you don't matter. At times, you felt psychologically numb due to the actions of others. Yet, though you've been stripped, robbed or betrayed you still cling to God, because going through your own personal anguish without Him is even more unthinkable. In the midst of your desperation, you find you still have the one thing that truly matters—you still have God. And, He then, becomes your everything and you feel like the wealthiest person in the world.
Indeed, through all your trials, you are being prepared for your destiny, and it will be great. One day you will look back on this time, and see that God has used it all to prepare you for your future.
Knowing your destiny was great, He wanted you to be prepared, so you would not fall when the real test comes: the test of success.
And so He wouldn't lose you in the midst of all the blessings He longs to give you, He needed to make sure your foundation was solidly grounded in Him, that your faith was thoroughly tried.
If you find yourself in similar circumstances as mine, then know: you are truly loved by your heavenly Father, resting in the palm of His hand. Your life belongs to Him and He will see that you are ready for the untold blessings He's kept in readiness for you, anticipating your destiny. You are His beloved and favored child - you belong to Him - His special creation.
Maybe you can see images of your own life in the story of Cinderella like I do. Our story, too, takes on a new and rich purpose when we meet with God. He makes all things new, even the painful events of our past. He makes beauty from the ashes of our lives (Isaiah 61:3). So, wherever you are, surrender your ashes to Him and watch Him make something beautiful of your life.
You are ENOUGH in Christ. xo
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