Hey Sis,
Pull up a chair. I want to talk about something we do not always include when we talk about purpose.
We talk about our gifts. We identify them, develop them, and look for ways to use them. There is wisdom in that. But lately another question has been sitting with me: What if part of your purpose is not found only in what you do well—but also in what you survived?
Most of us can talk about our gifts with confidence. Our wounds are different. Those are the chapters we edit, the memories we manage, and the moments we hope will never become part of how people define us.
The rejection. The betrayal. The relationship that changed. The opportunity that closed. The season when your faith did not feel as strong as everyone assumed it was. The decision you regret. The years you think you lost.
We learn how to keep moving. We smile. We show up. Some women even learn how to help everybody else while quietly bleeding themselves.
But healing and hiding are not the same thing. And neither are privacy and shame.
Can we talk about what this really is?
Sometimes the deepest wound is not only the event. It is the conclusion we formed about ourselves because of it.
They left, so I must not be worth staying for. I failed, so I must not be capable. I was overlooked, so I must be invisible. I should have known better, so perhaps I am no longer qualified.
The event happened once. But the conclusion can keep happening every time we repeat it to ourselves.
Paul wrote to the believers in Philippi while facing imprisonment and opposition: “What has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel” (Philippians 1:12).
He was not calling the hardship good. He was recognizing that hardship had not stopped God from working through his life.
Sis, what if the same God is able to bring wisdom, compassion, discernment, courage, or redirection from a chapter you thought had only disqualified you?
A wound says, “Look what happened to me.” A scar says, “Look what I survived.” A testimony says, “Look what God did with it.”
Your scar has a voice
A testimony does not always require full public disclosure. Sometimes it is spoken. Sometimes it is written. Sometimes it is shared with one woman. Sometimes the lesson is offered without the names and details. Sometimes the wisest testimony is simply the life you now live.
God can use what your story taught you without requiring you to hand everyone the unedited version.
W.O.R.T.H.Y. is not a claim that pain makes us worthy. Jesus has already settled our worth. It is a set of postures that helps us stop interpreting every wound as proof that we are unusable.
W — Welcome Trials. O — Offer Thanksgiving. R — Remember the Promise. T — Testify With Wisdom. H — Help Others. Y — Yield to Humility.
James wrote that trials can produce perseverance and maturity (James 1:2–4). The joy is not in being hurt. The joy is in knowing the trial does not have authority to waste your life.
Journal with me
What part of my story am I still allowing to define my worth?
What wisdom, compassion, discernment, or courage has that experience formed in me?
Where am I practicing wise privacy—and where might shame still be controlling me?
Complete this sentence: I have been treating __________ as a disqualification, but God may be preparing to use the wisdom it formed in me as __________.
Let us pray
Father, I bring You the parts of my story I would rather forget—the things that hurt me, the things I regret, the things I still do not understand, and the things I am still learning to forgive myself for.
Separate my identity from what happened to me. Show me what You are healing, what You are forming, what I should protect, and what I may one day share with wisdom. Free me from shame without pressuring me into exposure.
I trust You with my wounds. I trust You with my scars. And I trust You with what comes next. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Before you go
Your wound does not get to decide your worth. Your worst chapter does not get to write the ending. God is still writing.
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God loves you, and so do I!
Until next time,
Shelia