Look What the Lord has Done! Guest Blogger: Lyneta Smith

Welcome to the next story in my new series, Look What the Lord has Done! Stories of Divine Intervention. Today, Lyneta Smith will be sharing how the Lord broke through her depression and gave her hope.

From Breakdown to Breakthrough by Lyneta Smith

I thought I was having a breakdown; turns out, I was having a breakthrough.

As I faced the empty nest, I realized my career as a homeschool mom was coming to an end. As I thought about what I wanted to do with the second half of my life, I decided to finish my bachelor’s degree—liberal arts major with a minor in writing. I became the first in my family to achieve that level of education. My goal was to graduate summa cum laude.

Somewhere in the course of my last semester of classes, I experienced a memory so vivid I might have been watching it on a movie screen or reading it in the pages of a book. Only this scene was not fiction. I recognized it as something that happened to me as a young child.

Because it was such a horrible memory, I shook it off and got back to work. No use dwelling in the past.

After all, I had everything I could possibly want now, right? A doting husband, beautiful daughters who were excited to go make their own way in the world, and a nice, comfortable home. The past was in the past, after all.

Except when it wasn’t.

One memory turned into two, and then came more, until a flood of memories bombarded me daily. I couldn’t shut them out.

Accusing voices hounded me: “If people knew the horrible stuff that happened to you, they’d think you were dirty. How can you be a respectable leader in the church when you’re so tainted?”

I started to withdraw from every circle, even my husband and those closest to me.

I started asking God my own questions. “Why did you let these things happen to me? Why couldn’t I be like other Christians—ones who had a healthy childhood and a relatively pain-free life?”

Though I wouldn’t have admitted it out loud, deep down I thought it would be nice to just go to sleep and not wake up. I didn’t want to live in a world where such injustice was allowed to reign.

One day I was driving home from the grocery store, tears streaming from my eyes. I was praying, “Why did you make me…me? Why couldn’t I be someone else?” My life seemed too broken to fix. I wanted out of my story.

As I pulled into the garage, I heard, “Lyneta, will you trust Me with your story?”

The voice was not audible, but it was so clear and so close that I knew immediately it was God talking. His presence was clearer than I’d ever felt it before or since.

It was like He personally had come to sit in the car with me.

I looked in the rearview mirror to see if He were sitting in the backseat.

The backseat was empty.

I breathed a sigh of relief not to see Him physically in the car with me. But He was there.

I pondered His question for a full minute with the ignition off. While ice cream melted in the trunk, I thought about the inadequate job I’d done of managing my own story.

 I had trusted Jesus with my salvation—the forgiveness of my own sins, since I was about eight years old. But I had shouldered the shame of the sins of others—atrocities no child should even know about, let alone experience, from my earliest recollection.

I didn’t want those ugly memories to be part of my story, but I could not erase them any more than I could wash my own sins clean. I needed the blood of Jesus to do that.

I needed Jesus to heal and restore me from the pain of my past just as much as I needed His redemption from the slavery of sin.

I had trusted Him with my salvation; now I needed to trust Him with my story.

“Okay, I will,” I said aloud, gathering my purse and popping the trunk.

All that day, I marveled at what God had done. He’d seen me. He’d talked to me!

I didn’t know what He would do with my story, and that made me a little scared. But then again, it’s not really trust if there’s no risk.

Shortly after, He led me to a verse in Psalms that I still cling to.

Psalm 27: 13-14 (NIV)

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.”

There is evil in the world. We have an enemy who wants to destroy us any way he can. Sometimes it only takes a minute for a perpetrator of evil to wreak a lifetime of havoc on a victim. In the midst of that pain, it’s easy to lose sight of the goodness of God.

But we serve a powerful God—more powerful than any anxious thought, depth of depression, or painful memory. He’s more powerful than any sickness and even death.

God has done a lot of healing in my life since then. I do see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I no longer want to leave the land of the living, but diligently wait for the Lord; He gives me the strength I need.

My breakthrough cut through the core of all the deception that was keeping me from the purpose He planned for me. I may always have scars, but God’s redemption of my story helps me to be a light in other people’s dark journeys.

Closing Remarks and Prayer

Thank you, Lyneta, for sharing such a needed and timely message today. Many suffer in silence. I’m thankful for your encouragement for us to reach out to God in those desperate times. He binds up the broken-hearted and heals their wounds.

Dear Father,

Thank you for the gift of Your Son, who instills in us the ability to choose Your Good Words over the words of defeat and despair. You are Our Covenant God. You keep Your promises to us. No matter what we may face You are near to us and in Your great Love you draw us close. Give us all the courage to place our painful past experiences in Your capable Hands and grant us the ability to trust You with the results.

In Jesus’ Name I pray.

Amen.

Learn more about Lyneta:

Lyneta Smith writes and speaks to point others to the goodness of God. Her memoir, Curtain Call, is due to release March 13^th. Her work has been featured in Heart Renovation, several editions of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Clubhouse, Jr., and various other publications. She and her husband live with their mischievous Boston terrier and an opinionated tortie cat near Nashville, TN. They love to travel, enjoy time with their adult daughters, and teach Bible study at their local church. To connect with Lyneta, visit LynetaSmith.com.

Lyneta’s new book, Curtain Call is available for purchase at www.curtaincallmemoir.com .

“May God take the seed of your story and reap a harvest for His glory.”—Carla G. Pollard