The Communi---K

I know what it means to reach a place where pain makes the future hard to see. I also know that God can meet us there. He met me in my lowest place and began turning what I thought was the end of my story into a testimony of hope. Where you began does not determine where you will finish. Your past cannot cancel your purpose. Continue reading the full article on authurhenry.com.

  There are places in life that make you wonder if you will ever rise again. Places of pain. Brokenness. Loneliness. Disappointment. Places where the future becomes difficult to see and purpose feels impossibly far away. I know what those places feel like because I have lived through them. But I also know this: The gutter does not have to be where your story ends. When Pain Becomes Part of the Journey For years, I could not fully understand what God was doing with the painful chapters of my life. Like many people, I wanted the pain to disappear. I wanted answers. I wanted to understand why certain things had happened and why some seasons seemed to last so long. Eventually, I began to see my story differently. What if some of the places I considered evidence of my failure were actually places where God was preparing me? What if my pain did not cancel my purpose? What if the wilderness wasn't wasted? And what if the gutter was never intended to become my permanent addres...

  There are seasons in life when pain can convince you that where you are is where you will always be. I know what it feels like to look at your circumstances and wonder, How did I get here? I also know what it means to discover that God can meet you in the very place you thought had disqualified you. Here is a short excerpt from my book, From the Gutter to the Kingdom : “The gutter had been a place of brokenness. The wilderness became a place of preparation.” That realization changed the way I looked at difficult seasons. Sometimes the wilderness feels like God is silent. You pray. You wait. You ask. You believe—and nothing seems to happen. But silence does not always mean absence. Sometimes, silence is preparation . The wilderness may not be proof that you are going the wrong way. It may actually be part of the way. Your pain can teach you. Your scars can become part of your testimony. Your failures can become lessons. And the places you once wanted to hide can become...