I love testimonies! I think they’re my favorite part of church meetings. Revelation 12:11 says: “They triumphed over him [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Our testimonies are incredibly important because they help to fuel not only our own faith in future spiritual battles, but also fuels the faith of others who come after us. We encourage each other with our testimonies. We testify of the miracles that God has done, and because we know that God does not change, we know that God will do those same kinds of miracles again and again and again.
Oftentimes, our favorite testimonies are those of great and amazing things! We love the Bible stories of God parting the Red Sea. We love the testimony of the gospels of all the miracles that Jesus performed. We love to hear testimonies from the early church, people raised from the dead and demons cast out. We love to hear modern testimonies of miraculous healing, raising the dead, miraculous provision, and incredible stories of restoration in lives of all kinds from all nations. But we don’t often stop to consider where these testimonies come from.
We are hearing the outcome of stories of incredible trial and suffering. We love the story of the Red Sea. I loved watching the cinematic rendition in the Prince of Egypt movie. It stirred my heart. We know that as those Israelites approached the cost of the Red Sea and the Egyptians caught sight of them, that God is about to do a miraculous thing by parting the sea and allowing the Israelites to escape on dry land before trapping the Egyptians in the waters as they crash back together! But the Israelites didn’t know this. Those were men and women who had just escaped from slavery. Those were men and women stuck between a rock and hard place. Where was God? Here they were: sea on one side and certain death at the hands of the Egyptians on the other. If any of them saw a way out, they were acting in sheer faith! They didn’t know what God would do. They didn’t know IF God would do. They didn’t know.
When we are in the midst of trials and suffering, it’s hard to remember that God is there too. We find ourselves between a rock and hard place. We have sea on one side and Egyptians on the other, and in the heat of the moment, we aren’t thinking about a parting of the sea. We are like those Israelites crying out and asking, “Where are you, God?” We are in the middle. We have an unfinished testimony. It’s only after we’ve walked through the hard spot that we see the miracles that God did in the middle. In the middle we have pain and heartache. We might have confusion and doubt and shame. We may feel less like prayer warriors and men and women of faith and more like failures and castaways and orphans. But God is still God. God is still working, even when we can’t see it.
I hope one day, I can share my testimony of a restored family and a restored marriage with you. I hope that I can tell you of the miraculous healing of my daughter from the grip of mental illness. I hope I can share with you how God managed to accomplish the prophetic words and promises I feel He has given me…has given us as a family. I hope one day to write to you and tell you what awesome wonders God performed in my husband’s heart and in my heart and how He restored our marriage and rekindled our epic love story and used us in a mighty way as individuals and as a couple and as a family.
I claim that in faith.
But right now? I can’t. I can’t tell you how God will do this. I can’t tell you IF God will do this. I can only tell you what it feels like on the shore of the Red Sea. And I can tell you that this God that I am walking with in the middle of this valley that feels like a shadow of death is the same God who stood on that shore thousands of years ago and performed the miraculous. If He did it then, He can do it again!
I know what I want my miracle to look like. I hope that’s what happens. BUT…..I know that God’s plans are bigger than mine. He sees more. He knows more. His plans are always better. If God’s plans don’t look like my plans, it will be okay. It will be bigger, and it will be better. Whatever He has in store for me will be far beyond anything I could ever think, hope or even imagine. So when I pray I tell God what I desperately want to have happen, and then I surrender those wants to Him and ask that He do His will in my life.
That’s what happens in the middle of a testimony. My story is unfinished. It looks ugly. It looks messy. Just like the picture I chose shows only a shell of a building, my life looks a bit like this ugly shell. You can’t tell what it’s going to be yet. It isn’t finished. One day, this building will be complete. I’m sure it will be a masterpiece of architecture. It will fulfill the purpose of its builder. It will probably have beautiful finishes and creative touches that make it unique. One day my life will be the same. This testimony will be complete. It will be a finished. It will be a masterpiece of God’s mercy and His grace and His love. It will fulfill His purposes in my life. It will have beautiful finishes and creative touches that make it uniquely my testimony.
But in the meantime, I have to hold onto God’s Word. I have to fight those doubts and negative thoughts. I have to turn over to God all those feelings of failure and discouragement and remember that my identity doesn’t come from being a mother or from being a wife. My value isn’t based on my husband loving me. My identity and value come from God.
In the middle of separation and silence, I feel neglected, abandoned and rejected. My husband told me I was beautiful when he met me. He would often tell me how beautiful I was while we watched TV together, but he hasn’t said those words to me–or any kind words to me–in a month. I don’t feel beautiful. The man that promised to never leave me or abandon me, the one who said he would never file for divorce, now says that he has absolutely no interest in working things out with me. He is filing divorce…at least that’s what he says he intends to do. And I feel the pain of my past divorces like a brand on my skin labeling me as a bad wife, as unworthy. My husband claims I failed to submit to him in a godly way. He has labeled me as usurping his authority and trying to control and run things. It’s a label I’ve worn before in previous marriages, but this time I feel it’s one that is unearned. I’ve worked hard on being a godly wife.
Those feelings are hard. They are understandable, but they are hard. And those feelings open up a door in my mind for the enemy to take hold of and run with. If I allow him to, he’ll build strongholds here. He’ll hold me back. He’ll get to me to give up, and that’s the only sure way he gets a victory here. The devil only wins if we give up! I know this because God already won my victory, even if I have no idea what that victory looks like yet. It’s a done deal! It’s in the bag! I just have to hold on a bit longer to see it come to pass.
So I hold on to the promises in God’s Word. I hold on to the things that He says about me. I am His daughter. He loves me. I am chosen. I have value. He knew me before He formed me in my mother’s womb. He has good plans for me. I am beautiful to Him. He will always accept me into His throne room. I am a good wife. I am a good mother. I am a godly woman. I am obedient to Him. He will never leave me or abandon me. I hold onto knowing that God hates divorce, that He can change hearts and minds, and that He is at work on my problem even if I don’t feel it or see it.
If you find yourself in a hard place of suffering and trial, remember that you’re in the middle. You’re building a testimony. It doesn’t look pretty right now. You may not even know what “it” is, yet. But God knows. He’s a master builder. He’s making something beautiful out of you, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. One day, we will overcome the devil with the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony….this testimony! When God is finished with this, we will stand in awe of what He can do. In the meantime, we just need to hold on to His promises, trust in His ability and desire to work on our behalf, and rest in Him.
A Beautiful Mess 