Childhoods aren’t always easy and we all have our own stories we could share to that effect. For me, I went through a form of hell which was filled with a cocktail of abuse, violence, alcoholism and mental illness in for the mix. I was unable to do many normal things such as, going to the toilet, touching the floor and brushing my teeth.

 

I was often told I was supposedly ugly

Peace was a stranger I was yet to know. As a teenager I was often told how ‘ugly’ I supposedly was by many who were close to me, and that I was too dark skinned to be deemed beautiful or attractive by anyone. In those times, there seemed little point in my existence on earth. I felt like I was too much, whilst for others, I was not enough. As an adult, I was diagnosed with a serious illness. I lost much through that but I recovered. I experienced other struggles and trials of life as we all do. Then recently, many things lined up, some good things happened and I thought, maybe this is my season of reaping and of harvest and of course, my defenses weakened. I wasn’t alert. Then some test results came back with some negative news which meant more and more tests.

 

I simply wondered why I had to endure so much suffering and struggle in my life and why I was struggling with something yet again

I found myself angry at God; confused and disillusioned. I’d been in this place before and I knew God could handle my cries but I simply wondered why I had to endure so much suffering and struggle in my life and why I was struggling with something yet again. I despaired for a good few weeks and months but of course, I wore my happy mask for most of the time as we often do in public.

Sometimes it feels like one thing after another, but I am reminded that life is filled with ups and downs and although it sounds bleak and hard to fathom, we are not only in this for the good times, for the successes and wins, but we are in this for the long haul, the real deal, because we know that trials even though they are difficult, strengthen us.
This got me thinking; what if, when we find ourselves in situations where we can’t comprehend why we are going through this, when nothing makes sense and we feel out in the wilderness, what if we stopped in our tracks. What if we paused and thought for a moment ‘what is the enemy trying to achieve here?’; is he trying to make me lose my patience at someone, is he trying to take my peace, or is he just plain old lying! Maybe then we would be all the more powerful than we could ever imagine, maybe then we would be true definitions of Christian warriors.

Maybe, just maybe, this would radically change our lives.

Life doesn’t get easier, we just get stronger.

 

Mandy Gill