24

I had just finished watching Joy Blair share her testimony about overcoming unforgiveness, bitterness, and resentment. Those weren’t just words anymore. They were the names of everything I had been carrying.

There were no birthday dinners this year. No crowded restaurants. Just four walls, a YouTube video, and a young woman who had finally run out of places to hide.

When the video ended, I couldn’t hold myself together anymore. I wept bitterly. I cried out to the Lord. I knocked things over in my room. For the first time, I stopped running from His call on my life and surrendered everything I had been holding so tightly.

But God.

He met me right there—in my room. In my pain. In my sorrow. In my tears. In my yelling. In my hurting. He became my constant. The One I had been searching for all along. And this is where joy found me.

Twenty-four, you thought those four walls would become your prison. Instead, they became your sanctuary. You thought you were losing everything, but God was introducing you to the only thing that could never be taken away—His presence.