Suffering and Why I'm Here
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Life Things podcast, where we think life things, speak, life things, and share life things. I am your host Dejak author and grad student getting a Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy. This podcast is for women who desire to start a journey or are already on a journey of healing and wholeness.
Who's sick of choosing the wrong men and who are ready to let God do the choosing? The topics covered on this podcast will be faith, self-discovery, relat. Marriage and purpose. I hope this podcast renews your mind and helps you to think like things and speak like things through the life things you learned here.
So today we're gonna be talking about suffering. And I don't know if you guys know my testimony or not, but I have previously been divorced and that divorce and that heartbreak is what really pushed me into my purpose. [00:01:00] And what pushed me to start getting a Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy. It was really that suffering and that heartbreak that I went through during that time of separation for my ex-husband that really pushed me to my purpose and why I am even doing this podcast in the first.
I don't know actually where I would be if it wasn't for God. Um, I feel like God is the only reason why I'm even still here. God is the only reason why I'm still sane, and God is really the only reason why I'm able to turn my pain into purpose. And so I just wanted to come and talk to you guys, um, about the different reasons why God allowed me to go through the suffering that he had me go through.
So the first reason is because God was trying to protect me. And [00:02:00] when it comes to protection, um, my marriage was very toxic. When I mean toxic, I mean abusive. I feel like God did not want me to go through more than I had already went through in that marriage. So he just tried to pull me out of it before things got really bad.
And so the second reason is that I was making my ex-husband an idol depending on him, and putting basically my hope and just everything into a man, into my ex-husband and putting him on a pedestal. And God is a jealous guy. And so he doesn't want us to make idols out of anything or anyone. So he had to.
Knock him off that pal stool and put himself in that place so that I can realize that it's not about thinking that he can give me the things that I need. Um, it was all about [00:03:00] God giving me those things that I need. The third thing is so I could know my identity in Christ, and so I could confront my insecurities because I feel like the only reason why I was even in that situation was because I had insecurities.
I had fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, and I was a really big people. Please. Um, because I didn't want people to not like me. Those were my underlying issues. Like obviously at the time I didn't really know that that was the case, but that was the case. And so, um, God needed to allow me to see that he caused me a bunch of things.
in his word, and I need to know what my identity is in him so that I can stand in confidence in God, and I could stand in confidence and believe those things about myself so that I won't get manipulated. So I won't [00:04:00] be getting treated any kind of way. Um, And that I won't be like getting walked all over because I have, my identity basically comes from Christ and it doesn't come from if somebody likes me or not, or if somebody is gonna leave me or not.
The next reason was that God wanted to change my character, even though the relationship was not great in terms of his end, they were also not great in terms of my end. I was very aggressive and combative and just wasn't like a wife. Basically, the, the way that the Bible says a wife is supposed to be, I wasn't.
He wanted to change my character and give me the fruits of the spirit. Cause when we're following Christ and we're a Christian, we are supposed to be striving to have the fruits of the spirit, love, patience, [00:05:00] gentleness, self-control, all of these fruits of the spirit that God lays up for us. We're supposed to be striving to have those, and I was very far from all of those fruits of the spirit.
Um, when it came to my relat. The next one is God wanted me to have a testimony of my own. I feel like God always wants us to have our own testimony. He wants to show himself in our lives so that we can experience the goodness of God. I know that through this whole separation, divorce, everything that I've been through, uh, concerning that I know that it was only God that I'm here.
I know that I have a testimony to give and I know that I can help women on the other end of it now because I've already been through it. That's the reason why I'm here now sharing these things because I know it's some women out there. Who are going through [00:06:00] separation, who are going through divorce, and they need to hear somebody who has come out on the other side and they need to hear that God will really pull you through and God will walk with you.
All you have to do is hold his hand and he'll walk you straight out of that thing. So I hope that encourage somebody. The last reason that God allowed me to go through this suffering was for my purpose. Before, I didn't really know what my purpose was. I didn't know the callings on my life, or really even the gifts that I had or anything like that.
And through this journey, God has really revealed to me the things that I'm supposed to be. The path that I'm supposed to go as far as purpose goes, I have written a children's book called Who I Am, which is available on Amazon, and I've written a book, pain to Purpose, which is my testimony book, and that is also on Amazon.[00:07:00]
And so I've written two books out of this thing, and I'm just now starting my podcast and I'm just trying to move forward in the things that I know God has told me to do as a result of this suffering. And so that is it you guys. I hope this encouraged you today. Just remember to think life things, speak life things and share life things.