Shattered Mosaic

A series of broken dreams, unfulfilled hopes, illnesses, hard work and empty pockets, abuse and rejection over the years left little more than a pile of shattered glass around me on the floor. Jagged edges, different colors, different sizes appear to be nothing more than something needing to be picked up and thrown into the trash heap. Is this all that 40 years has come to?

Because I have chosen to put God first in my life, the answer is no! My story did not end with nothing but broken glass, useless to anyone. God’s word says that He makes beauty from ashes. He also says that He will never leave us or forsake us. It may take many years for us to see God’s plan for our lives, and how He will make something good out of all the bad, as it did me…44 years, in fact! This really seems like a long time when it’s our life we are talking about, but to God 40 years is like a vapor.

Five years ago, I looked back over my life and was overwhelmed by God’s grace, provision, protection and strength over the years and how He brought me through so much up to that point. What I went through could have so easily destroyed me, yet it didn’t. As I thought about these things, a big smile erupted on my face and joy welled up inside of me. I was the most grateful person on earth at that point and decided right then that I had too many wonderful things to share. I had a new passion from that point on to share all of the amazing ways God intervened in my life and made me what I was today.

At that moment I thought, “I have so many amazing testimonies that I want everyone to know about!” The question was, how could I possibly achieve this? The Lord whispered to my spirit the words, “You could write them all down,” and at moment my book “Struck Down, But Not Destroyed” was born. I then began to speak to small church groups, ladies conferences, Celebrate Recovery groups and Teen Challenge. I knew that because of all I had been through, it was only by the grace of God that I had not ended up with an addiction problem and spiral downward to the point of no return. Since then, I have had a passion to speak to various groups as God has led me to inspire them to rise above their circumstances and trust God to help them through their fears, hurts and disappointments.

I am forever thankful that God has taken all of these broken pieces of glass called my life and created a beautiful piece of art, a mosaic, out of them! To God be the glory!