Finding Purpose After the Pain

When we give God the brokenness and pain we endure in this life, and we allow him to heal our hearts, we become beautiful instruments of his love and grace. This week on the podcast my guest Stephanie Scott shares the painful wounds of losing a child, and how God’s amazing grace brought healing and comfort in her life. Today on the blog she shares how God took one of life’s most difficult losses and turned it for good. Stephanie recounts how she now has found purpose in pain.

by Stephanie Scott

Writing this was beyond my wildest imagination almost 20 years ago. There is a picture from then of me holding my tiny infant son while he took his last breath on earth. In the picture, tears are pouring down a face full of despair with a bright smile for the camera. 

     My son, Wyn, was to be my only biological child on earth.  Despite every heartbreaking effort in my quest to “be a mother.”  Accepting God’s will in this was as far from reality as the desert is from the sea.

      I won’t pretend it has been quick or easy. The anger I felt at God churned through my belly with a ferocity matched by the fires hell in intensity. 

      But I put a pretty face on for the world. I figuratively buried my pain so deep and covered it with concrete. Then spread rich and fertile soil. The seeds planted were sprinkled with the rain of held back tears. So the flowers could bloom in a brilliant hue.  For years I coasted in this way.

      Through God, the grief and anger escaped through the cracks in the concrete and porous nature of soil though. Little by little letting go and learning what He’s saying so. God ‘s staying power over dismaying power every time.

        Now I am the team mom for Reinhardt University football where my husband is the Defensive Coordinator. I held my son and know the love I have for the players entrusted to me is no different. 

       When people thank me for what I do them, I always answer, “Oh, I am the blessed one.” And mean it! They call me Mama Scott and their love for me is all my mama’s heart ever needed.

       Some of these boys come from such broken circumstances.  The mothering I give is the first they have ever known.  A lot of them are learning about Christ’s love for the first time too. The best part of my job is praying for them and watching them come to Christ.  

        I am like the little old lady that lived in the shoe except God shows me what to do. All I ever yearned for was another son, and God has given me hundreds     

        It is just like it promises in Jer. 29:11.  ^“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

There is meaning and purpose in tragedy, and it IS God’s greatest blessing. My smiles now are not for the camera.

Stephanie Scott is a coach’s Tommy’s wife and team mom at Reinhardt University. Stephanie’s motto is faith, family, friends, football, and service. You can find out more about Stephanie on her blog www.hopeshaping.com