Daughters of Promise September/October 2015 | Page 10

and become more spiritually grounded, and began to pray for
a miracle that would allow me to stay another six weeks at the
school – an opportunity that was impossible because of my job
back home. I decided to pray through the end of January. On the
31st, a snowboarding accident landed me in the ER with a badly
broken right arm, eight weeks medical leave, and the answer to
my prayer. It was exactly 180 days since my parents had asked us
to end the relationship. My heart began its own one-hundredand-eighty-degree change in direction.

If happy endings
were the goal, than
most of our earthly
struggles would
force us to conclude
that God is inept and
pain is a waste.

It was a season of pain and brokenness, the physical suffering
mirroring what was happening inside. For the first and more
dramatic time in my life, I experienced the agony of “godly
sorrow leading to repentance.” Grief was added to grief when the
treasured relationship on which I had pinned so many hopes and
dreams, ended. I felt shattered.

monthly newsletter. The email list included over 500 names and I
started thinking about expanding DOP into a magazine format. It
made sense and would support the growing interest and amount
of content. So, in January, 2013, Microsoft Word was really put
to the test and a whopping 29-page issue was released. The DOP
team grew as well, as we added a full-time photographer and two
staff writers. It was such an exciting time for me personally, and
for the growth of the magazine.

There were so many unanswered questions. I knew that now
I needed to wait on God to fulfill my heart’s desires, but I was
bereft without the person who had been dearest to me for 3 years.
How do you cope with such smothering loss? Knowing that I was
following God did not take away, or even really dull, the pain for
many months.
During that time I began to rearrange the contents of my heart,
tearing down harmful thoughts and habits an