Nickolene Lurch

There are seasons of my life that I understand differently now than I did while I was living through them.

At the time, I thought I was losing.

Losing people. Losing opportunities. Losing time. Losing pieces of the life I thought I was supposed to have.

But looking back has a way of changing the view.

Some of the people I cried over losing were people I eventually realized I had outgrown. Some doors I desperately wanted God to open would have taken me somewhere I wasn’t meant to stay. And some of the prayers He didn’t answer the way I wanted turned out to be protection I couldn’t recognize at the time.

That’s the thing about growth. Sometimes you don’t realize it’s happening until you look back and notice that the things that once would have broken you don’t have the same power over you anymore.

You’re responding differently.
You’re choosing differently.
You’re trusting God differently.

Not because life became easier, but because somewhere along the way, you became stronger.

Joseph couldn’t see the palace while sitting in the pit. What looked like betrayal, disappointment, and delay eventually became part of a much bigger story.

“But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good…”
Genesis 50:20 (KJV)

I love that Scripture because Joseph didn’t pretend what happened to him was good. He recognized that God was able to bring good out of it.

I can look back at my own life now and see places where God was protecting me when I thought He was withholding from me. I can see redirection where I once saw rejection. I can see growth where I once saw only struggle.

I couldn’t see it then.

But I can see some of it now.

And the parts I still don’t understand, I’m learning to trust God with those too.

Don’t let an unfinished chapter convince you that God has stopped writing.

Sometimes you have to look back to realize just how far He’s already brought you.

Keep flowing on purpose,

Nicki