If advertising companies could sell us a new life when things didn't go as planned or when it is bringing us troubles or pains, I wonder how many would call or go online to purchase a new one? I'm sure the advertisement would be something like this: "If you call in the next 5 minutes, we'll even throw in a free do-over if you mess your new life up. Call now to guarantee your free gift while limited supplies last."

That sounds good doesn't it? Especially on the days you've been praying and praying for God to give you the breakthrough you desperately need. See, I'm the type of person who understands Who God is but most of the time, I'm like Peter. I'm not afraid to jump out and go to Jesus when I know He's there but when I see that storm raging around me, my faith turns inward and I start to drown. I'll admit I'd be one of the first callers for that quick fix of a new and better life that takes me out of certain situations. But what if the breakthrough I've always needed wasn't in something better but in the breaking?

My prayer for you, the person who clicked on this article, is that you feel the freedom I've finally felt in the broken places of my own life for quite some time. I've always had this picture of what I think a breakthrough is (or should be). It's this magical feeling that just hits you out of nowhere and all the depression, sadness, and hurt just disappears. You no longer fear tomorrow. The anxiety is gone and you march forward not afraid one single bit of what's coming. But that's not what happened. It was a process and ohhhh my friend how I hate processes. That requires patience and that's something this gal struggles with.

My breakthrough wasn't a magical healing but our God isn't a genie who grants us three wishes when we pray. I had been praying for so many months for a breakthrough. You know how it goes. It's mostly me telling God what He needs to be doing for me because that's the only way it's going to work right? Wrong. I wanted the pain to stop. I wanted the exhaustion of getting out of bed and having to even face the day to stop. I wanted out of that fire. I felt so forsaken by my God who promised He'd never leave me. Why weren't my prayers enough? Why didn't He love me like He says He does? Why didn't He deliver me when I needed Him to? Why couldn't He answer my prayers like He did everyone else's? It took many and I mean many months to realize it was because I needed what was happening to me. That's right, even all those terrible things. Even the one where I didn't want to get out of bed. Do you know why? Because I had reached a place where I couldn't even talk to God. All I could say for months was this very prayer: "God, please don't give up on me. God please help me." That was it. For months. Nothing else did I even mutter to God. Slowly, in a place where I thought I had hurt God so much because I couldn't even talk to Him, I felt my heart changing. Not by anything I did but Him. I wasn't (and still certainly am not) worthy, but He loves me. He wanted me to see that He can do for me without me feeling like I had to always have it together and be perfect. That's an unattainable goal only Christ achieved. I earned a faith and trust in God that could only come from those dark places. Without the betrayals, shattered hope, and losses, I’d never had learned how to truly trust God and learn when something is for me and when it isn’t. I’d never learned what was truly rooted in my heart.

See, God loves me too much to give me a quick fix of a magical breakthrough I wanted. No, God wanted me in a place of my greatest vulnerability and surrender to show me it's not about my works to prove to Him I'm deserving. God met me at my lowest point and changed my heart to trust, to love, to give, to believe, to hope again right in the midst of my breaking.

So my friend, let me leave this with you today: If you feel the way I did and sometimes still have those days, the breakthrough is in the breaking. The change is in the pain. The deliverance is in the depression. The hope is in the hopelessness. You don't have to do a thing. It's not by our works that God can be God. It's our humility, weakness, and surrender that allows Him to be Him. Just utter the small mustard seed faith of a prayer I prayed for so long and watch God transform you. You’re not worthy and you never will be because you’re like me, a sinner. What makes us worthy is our Father’s incomprehensible love. Your breakthrough will be right in the middle of the breaking.

"Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing."

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2:7-10‬ ‭MSG‬‬