A Humbled Reality

I sat on a bench overlooking East Lake Okoboji on a Friday afternoon, letting the breeze skim across the water while camp buzzed quietly around me. My final afternoon in the place I have called home for 20 years, for one week ever summer it was the place that became magical and transformative to who I am today. This was one of those ordinary moments that God has a way of making unforgettable.

A camper sat down across from me and, almost casually, said, "I think I'm going to have surgery next year."

Then came the questions.

Questions about procedures. About what it feels like. About recovery. About the unknown. He was asking these questions without knowing that I have had that same procedure many times before. He asked knowing that I was a safe place to ask, to ponder, to wonder, and to see what it does.

To anyone else, it may have seemed like a simple conversation. But to me, it was sacred.

In that moment, I was reminded of something I often forget when I'm in the middle of my own suffering: my story has become a place where others feel safe. By this point of the week, my scars were very tight and painful, exhaustion was my second name, but it was a moment of divine appointment that broke through all of that to awaken my heart to this reality:

My scars have become an invitation. They quietly whisper, "You can be honest here. You don't have to carry this alone."

My pain has become a language that someone else finally understands. It speaks where words fall short, reminding weary hearts that they are seen, known, and not the only one who has walked this road.

My suffering has become a roadmap to someone else's healing. Every valley I've crossed, every tear I've cried, every fire I've endured leaves behind a trail of hope, gently telling the next traveler, "Keep going. There is grace ahead. There is life beyond this pain."

Because the beauty of redemption is this: what once threatened to break us becomes the very thing God uses to help someone else believe they can make it home.

And I was humbled to the core.

Every moment of fear. Every surgery. Every tear shed in hospital rooms. Every prayer whispered through pain. Every piece of the journey that I have walked alone. Every ounce of frustration, grief, anger, and suffering that has shaped my life...

None of it has been wasted. Those days of walking alone are no longer because someone is now walking with that girl on the path, exactly where they are in this moment!

The Lord has woven every thread into something that allows me to love people more deeply, sit with them more gently, and remind them they are not alone.

Now, as I sit one week away from another surgery, those words feel especially close.

For the first time in five years, I'm preparing to step back into a world of operating rooms, recovery, uncertainty, and healing. There are questions I can't answer. How will everything work out? How will the bills get paid? What does recovery look like as a fully independent adult? What will this chapter ask of me?

There are still plenty unknowns.

But there is also peace.

Because that Friday reminded me that how I walk through suffering matters.

Not because I have to pretend everything is okay. Not because I need to have all the answers. But because every response becomes an opportunity to reflect the One who has never left me.

At a prayer night last night, we sang a song where one lyric stopped me in my tracks:

"Even in just a smile they would feel the Father's love."

I had to sit with those words. What a beautiful—and challenging—prayer.

To live with such compassion, such gentleness, and such hope that even a smile would point someone toward Jesus. That people wouldn't simply see resilience or positivity, but would catch a glimpse of the Father's heart through the way I carry myself.

That is the life I want to live.

Not because life is easy.

Not because suffering has disappeared.

But because Christ has remained faithful through every fire.

So as I step into another season of surgeries, healing, and waiting, this is my prayer:

Lord, let my face always be turned toward You.

And if all I have the strength to offer some days is a smile, may even that be enough for someone to encounter Your love.