"I Wish I Had Your Life..."

No, you really don't.

It was a simple comment, probably a one-off, but it hit me hard. An online friend responded to a praise I had posted with a private message that started, “I wish I had your life…” The message went on to catalog some very real hardships and hurts, but what stuck with me was the assumption that somehow, I’d been spared from the same. The undercurrent was clear: if I hadn’t had such a simple, rewarding life free of trauma, I would struggle to say that God is good, all the time.

No one is without baggage. Everyone carries around their invisible past, and it shapes us in ways those around us may never know. The person who wished, even for a moment, for the highlight reel she has seen of my life has no idea what lead to this time and place. She just assumed it had to be easier than the story the Lord had written for her.

I could sit here and list out all the tragedies of my life in an attempt to prove her wrong. I could say, no, it’s not like that. I, too, have been crushed and made whole again. I have felt the effects of sin— my own as well as others. See? I’m just like you. So if I can praise His Name, you can, too.

But that misses the point.

The point is, it doesn’t matter.

Parents who made poor choices. Relatives who should have been on the sex offender registry. Drugs, alcohol, lying, mental illness.

God is good. Full stop.

Even if I was born to doting parents, nurtured in an environment that exuded nothing but love, and made choices I was proud of, I was a sinner. I needed the blood of Jesus to pay the debt I could not. Background doesn’t change that.

The Lord allowed my story, just as He allowed my friend’s… and yours. Those stories have the purpose of leading us to recognize the need for redemption and the depth of grace that is offered. They are gifts to us from a Father who weeps as we hurt, but knows that His glory will shine all the brighter and be that much more precious to us when we see that His fingerprints were there all along.

So no, you don’t want my life. And I don’t want yours. Tempting though it may be to have never felt our hurts, they are part of the story that ends with us praising our Savior in His presence, and that makes them beautiful.

In Christ,

Heather

If you feel led to support our ministry, you can use the above qr code to donate.