I didn’t come into this world under easy circumstances. My story began in chaos, and for a long time, chaos felt like all I knew. I grew up around instability, absence, addiction, and pain that shaped me before I was old enough to understand it. Love often felt fragile, and safety felt uncertain. I learned early how to survive.
That was my “40”—not just one season, but years of carrying wounds, grief, and questions.
When I was sixteen, I lost someone I loved deeply to cancer, and that loss shattered something in me. I didn’t just grieve her—I wrestled with God. I questioned how a loving God could allow such pain. My faith felt ripped away. And yet life kept moving. I became a mother. I carried responsibilities while still carrying wounds no one could see. There were days I felt exhausted, unseen, and stretched beyond what I thought I could endure.
But I kept getting up.
And somewhere in all of it, something began to shift. Not because life suddenly became easy, but because I began to see that survival was becoming strength. I started realizing I was becoming what I never had. A protector. A provider. A mother determined to break cycles that had shaped generations before me.
It stops with me.
That became a turning point.
My “41” is not perfection. It is healing in progress. It is learning that my past does not define my future. It is recognizing that God has been present even in the places where I once only saw pain. He has been shaping strength in me, refining perseverance in me, and showing me that pain does not get the final say.
I did not become what I came from.
By God’s grace, I became something different.
If you are still in your “40,” I want you to know your story is not over. What has wounded you does not have to define you. You may feel like you are only surviving, but God may be building strength in you that you cannot yet see. Keep standing. Keep going. There is hope on the other side of what feels unending.