Often in life, we find ourselves in unexpected situations for which we feel vastly unprepared. I found myself in such a crisis at the end of 2017 while living in Honduras with my family. As missionaries, we were accustomed to change and hard situations, but when we discovered that my husband was in complete renal failure and needed immediate dialysis in the U.S., our lives changed, along with our perspective of trials. Everything we had faced up to that point suddenly seemed small in comparison, and we began a long season of emotional, physical, and spiritual heartache that challenged our faith. The trials were further compounded because our two Honduran foster children, whom we had cared for since infancy, could not immigrate to the U.S. until their adoptions were complete, and since my husband could not live in Honduras anymore, we were faced with a life-altering decision. In my time of desperation, I desired a trumpeting voice of instruction from Heaven, but I received a still, small whisper, and His whisper to me was, “If you choose the hard path, I will bless you more than you can imagine.” I knew in that moment that we had to fight for our children, our family, and all of God’s promises. I also knew it would be a fight, an impossible one that God would have to fight for us. We spent the next two years doing the unthinkable and living a life I never could have imagined to get to the victory He had prepared for us. There was not one single area of our lives that wasn’t affected—our finances, marriage, children, health, ministry, vision, and friendships—yet He was faithful to His promise.

Resilience is often defined as the ability to recover or bounce back from hardship. Perhaps most would agree that they would rather be in the mountain-top moments where they feel strong and accomplished, but it is through our hardships, valleys, and even failures that we have an opportunity to let the Lord restore us and make us stronger than before. That is how we build resilience. Resilience is formed not during the crisis, but in the recovery process. It is easy to think how we may react during a certain crisis, but the reality is we don’t know until we are in the actual battle. At the end of the two years, the Lord gave me a vision. It was of me dressed in battle armor, but I wasn’t valiantly walking. I was crawling. The armor was worn, and there were wounds under the cracks in the metal. It was an accurate picture of how I felt following two years of crisis. The Lord had brought me through the crisis, yet I remained spiritually and emotionally engaged in survival mode, and it would take Him bringing me through the recovery process for me to bounce back.

I would like to say that I mastered every sin, had the mind of Christ one hundred percent of the time, and responded in the perfect will of God while undergoing the hardest season of my life, but the truth is most days I just stood. Through His grace, there were seasons when I was able to move forward, becoming more rooted and grounded in Him while in the midst of battle, and seasons when I felt like I was taking two steps forward and one step back. Those were the seasons during which He carried me. It was not in my own works or anything that I could accomplish in the natural that I built resilience, but rather it was formed after the victory when the adrenaline wore off, when I was in a safe environment, and when I was able to comprehend what had taken place.

After returning home from overseas, after our family was restored, every decision that I had made during the warring season came rushing back. All the emotions that I could not process at the time flooded my heart and mind as I struggled to live in the present. Six months after the crisis had ended, I hit a wall: anxiety flooded my soul, and I was completely overwhelmed, unsure if I would be able to get through the insurmountable mountain of my past. I spent the next year letting the Lord heal the wounds from the battle and build resilience within me. There are some key scriptures and truths that were helpful to me during this time in bringing me back from a place of crawling, and these I would like to share. However, each of us are His masterpiece, created in His likeness and goodness, and each with our own experiences, strengths, and weakness, and nothing that I write will take the place of you hearing God in your own life, but I pray that it will be an encouragement.

First of all, we have have to realize that God often allows memories or emotional wounds to reappear in our lives because of His great love for us. He wants us to be set free from the captivity of the enemy that relentlessly works to keep us in places of guilt, shame, and regret. In fact, He not only wants us to be set free, but through the freedom that He offers, He has a mission for us by the power of the Holy Spirit to set others free as well. We do that by enduring and remembering our testimonies. However, we have limited testimonies if we do not overcome. I quickly realized that I was a prisoner of my past had to find healing so that I could move forward. The keys for me were forgiveness, trust, and identity. They are each built upon one another.

“Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” Romans 2:4 (NKJV)

During the crisis season, there had been so many times when my vulnerable heart was crushed under the weight of unfulfilled expectations. I had expectations of my family, friends, ministry partners, myself, and even God. Some of those that were actualized, but many of them were not. People that I thought would be there during that time were not. Prayers that I was certain would be answered quickly were not. Most of all, I had expectations of myself. We were taught in the peaceful times how to handle adversity and trials, yet I fell so short of how I thought I would respond. I had so many “should have” moments once the dust settled. I had so many questions for God, and my heart struggled to reconcile the question “why”. I thought I needed to bury these emotions and questions and hide them from God, but I discovered that He wanted me to bring these before Him so that He could carry the heavy weight of my crisis, and in exchange, He would restore me. I have found over the years that one of our most powerful weapons that we often fail to utilize as Christians is forgiveness. It is only by forgiveness of sins that we are made whole and brought back into a right standing with God, yet we hoard it and often judge who is worthy of forgiveness even though not one of us is worthy outside the grace of our good Father. I remembered all that God had done for our family, what He had brought us through, and it led to true repentance, allowing God to begin softening my heart. The choice to surrender all my disappointments and unmet expectations to Him, to ask Him to change my heart and remove anything that sets itself up against Him in my life, began the change. The realization of my own unmerited forgiveness paved the way for me to forgive others in my life and begin my recovery process.

“Whenever our hearts make us feel guilty and remind us of our failures, we know that God is much greater and more merciful than our conscience, and he knows everything there is to know about us. My delightfully loved friends, when our hearts don’t condemn us, we have a bold freedom to speak face-to-face with God. And whatever we ask of him we receive, because we keep his commands. And by our beautiful intentions we continue to do what brings pleasure to him.” 1 John 3:20-22 (TPT)

As my heart started to soften, I was faced with the question of whether or not I was going to choose to trust God with it. Still very wounded, I would have to trust Him on a greater level than before. I would not only have to trust Him with my future, but I would have to trust Him with my past. He was requiring more trust from me during my most vulnerable season and it came with sleepless nights, panic attacks, and fearful moments when I struggled to give Him all of myself. I had to rewire my brain and take captive my thoughts to align with His truths and promises for my life in a whole new way. It was only by His grace and power that we were victorious, yet I was often paralyzed with fear, unsure if He would do it again, unsure if He really would protect our family, keep us guarded and safely deliver us into our future. I constantly meditated on His word, strategically placed verses around the house, and when the enemy came in with lies, I spoke God’s truths instead. It wasn’t easy. It was a year full of recovery, and it was exhausting. I still remain on this faith journey of trusting and resting in Him, but it is getting easier, and the scriptures that I sometimes read multiple times daily are now written on my heart. Trust is becoming easier, and I am learning that I can trust Him with more.

“You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way, and in kindness you follow behind me to spare me from the harm of my past. You have laid your hand on me!”  Psalm 139:5 (TPT)

Lastly, one of the major keys for my recovery from the crisis was knowing not only my identity but the identity of the One by whom I was created. I have been told from an early age that I am very independent, and in our western culture, that is seen as a good thing. However, when we find ourselves back in the arms of our Creator, we have to give up ourselves and cease from our own works so that we can be made whole in Him. I had come out of a time when it seemed I was in overdrive ninety-five percent of the time, and my normally independent nature became overly vigilant, unable to rest. After determining I would become vulnerable again and start trusting, the Lord opened my eyes to who it was that I was choosing to trust.

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Romans 8:14-17 (NIV)

The day that this verse became real to me, I wept so much that the front of my t-shirt was drenched in tears. After twenty years of following Christ, I understood. We had successfully adopted two precious children, and in His goodness, He revealed to me His great love for me, the same love we felt for our children. Actually, His love is even greater and more pure. I not only saw Him from a Heavenly perspective but saw myself how He sees me. I felt His immense love for me, a love that defies all logic, a love that pursues, a love that endures, a love that overcomes, and a love that recovers.

We are all called to be Oaks of Righteousness (Isaiah 61) with roots that run deep, but we don’t get there by avoiding the trials and hardships of life. When we are being battered by the storms of life and bent more than we feel we can handle, we recover through Him. Whatever crisis you have been through in your life that has left you wounded, I am so sorry. You are not alone, and you are not without hope. You are not weak because of your hardships or even failures, you are actually in the perfect situation to let Him make you stronger than before, but you cannot do it alone or by your own strength. He will restore you, heal you, and give you a testimony that will not only give you freedom but will also set others free.