Not a Curse, but a Calling

There are things I don’t talk about very often. Not because I am afraid to, but because they are so deeply woven into me that speaking them feels like pulling at the seams of my own existence. My story is not just a collection of moments—it is a weight I have carried, a pain I have learned to live with, a fire I have walked through time and time again.

I have lived through suffering. The kind that lingers. The kind that shapes you before you even understand what it means. I grew up with it, moved with it, carried it like a silent shadow. I have known what it means to lose, to be wounded, to be cast aside. I have felt the sting of rejection, the ache of grief, the weight of absence where love should have been.

And then, there is the pain that is still with me. The kind no one sees. The kind that settles into my body, making even the simplest things difficult. Chronic pain is relentless. It does not wait for convenient moments. It does not care about schedules or plans. It is the quiet thief that steals ease, that makes normalcy feel like a distant dream. I wake up with it, walk with it, breathe with it. And yet, I choose to show up. I choose to smile when I can, to be present in the good moments, to leave the tears at home and press forward because I long for something that feels like life.

But the world doesn’t always understand what it cannot see.

“Aren’t you better yet?” they ask.

“Maybe you just need to pray harder.”

And then, the words that cut the deepest—the ones that try to measure my suffering against God’s goodness.

“If God is good, why would He allow you to live in pain?”

They want answers. Neatly packaged, easy-to-digest explanations that will make sense of what they refuse to understand. But no answer I give will be enough. And that’s okay. Because their doubts do not shake my faith. Their bitterness does not make me question my purpose or whether I am worthy to carry His message of love.

You see, I don’t live by the world’s opinions. I don’t fall for the if you just did this responses. I don’t get caught up in the if you only had more faith spiel. I refuse to measure my life by the standards of people who do not know the depths of my walk with God. Because no matter what, God is good.

He is the One I live for.

The One I wake up and greet first.

The last One I say goodnight to.

The One I cry with, talk with, make plans with.

The One who has never turned away from me, even when many in the world did.

I was once stuck. Stuck in the trauma of my turbulent childhood, stuck in the pain of every bad thing that happened until just a few years ago. I lived there, inside those memories, inside that sorrow, until the Lord showed me something that changed everything:

I could visit, but I did not have to stay.

I could pull from the past, but I did not have to let it hold me captive. The pain that shaped me did not have to define me. The suffering that once stole my breath did not have to write the end of my story.

My pain is not a curse. It is a calling.

It is something I have been entrusted with, not as punishment, but as purpose. It is the very thing that slowed me down enough to walk in the rhythm of Jesus. To cultivate a relationship I never dreamed possible. Because if I was fully well, if my body carried no weakness, if my days were easy, life would take over. The busy would start again. I know myself—I would run ahead, filling my time, chasing after things that do not satisfy. And so, I have to see the blessing in this.

Because maybe healing is not always the absence of pain. Maybe healing is endurance. Maybe it is faith that refuses to waver. Maybe it is learning to walk with Jesus at His pace, not mine.

And maybe that is the miracle.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring. I do not know if this pain will ever leave. But I do know this:

God is good. And He has never let me go.

But now, let me turn this to you…

I don’t know what you are walking through. But I know what it feels like to wake up already exhausted. To be so tired of hurting—physically, emotionally, spiritually—that you don’t even have the energy to explain it anymore.

I know what it’s like to wonder if anyone really sees you. To fight battles that no one else knows about. To smile in public and fall apart in private.

I know what it’s like to beg God to take it away. To cry until your chest aches and your breath runs out. To sit in the silence, waiting for an answer that doesn’t come in the way you wanted.

And I know what it’s like when the enemy whispers:

“This is pointless.”

“You will never be free.”

“You are too broken, too weak, too far gone.”

But hear me—that is a lie.

Because the very thing that was meant to take you out? God is using it to raise you up.

What you see as a curse might actually be the makings of a calling.

The very thing that broke you may be the thing that builds you.

The very suffering you never asked for may be the thing God uses to pull someone else out of the dark.

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” — Genesis 50:20

So don’t you dare believe the lie that your pain is wasted.

Don’t believe for one second that you are forgotten.

God is still writing your story.

And if you’re still here, if there is still breath in your lungs, then your story is not over.

So keep going.

Keep breathing.

Keep believing.

Because you are not alone. And you never have been.

And because even in this—especially in this—He is walking with you.

Love, Sarah xx.

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