Just the other night a friend asked if I could talk. After twenty minutes or so, they sighed and said, “I want to hear your thoughts on this, please.”

As they had been sharing their experience, the entire time there was another experience on my mind: one that was very similar to theirs, but that had happened to me personally a few months prior. That particular experience for me had been a hard, bittersweet one, and I’d wondered why God had made it so important for it to happen.

But as this friend asked, “Can you share your thoughts?” I realized that I had the words and the story to help them and possibly provide encouragement. I asked if I could tell that story as they hadn’t heard it before and they said please do, so I did. During the time when I shared my story, I would look up from my hands every few minutes and see them staring up at the ceiling, lips pressed together tightly.

“That’s exactly how I feel,” they said when I described the nauseating dread I’d felt in this scenario.

When I explained how the Lord worked everything out and ended up blessing that experience—hard, it may have been—they said that this was exactly what they needed to hear.

Although the experience I had gone through was to teach me many things, it was also to equip me so that I can be a form of encouragement and empathy in this friend’s time.

There is a special beauty in being able to share what the Lord has done for us throughout our entire lives, but there’s a different kind of beauty in getting to share the goodness of how the Lord has worked in small moments. Moments that can be used to not only teach us, but also encourage others.

There is purpose for all the moments, changes, losses, relationships, and pain that you wish hadn’t happened.

Does that disqualify your emotions or struggles? No, of course not. If anything, it validates them. But it brings hope (at least it does for me) knowing that everything is a lesson worth learning.

My friend Apple sent me this picture a while ago, which I believe I’ve shared in the past, but I am always finding it to be a great reminder.

There’s many testimonies in the Bible that recount how people’s past experiences blessed them or blessed others in the future.

Paul, whose cruel past might have tainted his conscience, learned how to best encourage others and persevere in times of persecution. (1 Corinthians 15:9)

David, whose family rejected him, learned how to follow the Lord’s guidance rather than bow under earthly threats. (1 Samuel 16: 8-11)

Mary Magdalene, who had been possessed by several demons, was able to be a living testimony and play an important role in order to help grow Jesus’ ministry. (Mark 16:9)

These are just three examples of people using their past or their experiences for the good of the Lord.

We can still do this today.

Thanks for reading, I hope it was encouraging!
~Willow