Life-Giving Words of Hope & Encouragement

Seasons shape us. Some bring growth and green leaves; others bring pruning so deep it feels like we’ve been cut back to a bare trunk. When losses pile up—job, health, friendships, even loved ones—it can feel like life is subtracting faster than God is adding. That’s exactly where God met me.

C. S. Lewis once wrote, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” Those words aren’t naïve; they’re defiant hope. I lived through a season when everything familiar fell away. It hurt. But I became convinced that while pruning feels like subtraction, in God’s hands it’s preparation. What the enemy designed for harm, the Lord was already repurposing for good.

Everything shifted when I stopped gripping for control and started trusting that God truly had me in the palm of His hand—that He was ordering my steps and would be my vindicator. Once my eyes lifted above the circumstances, I found myself getting excited about the future again. Even when it seemed like I was moving backward, God was quietly uncovering gifts I didn’t know I had and leading me to hidden treasures I never would have found on my own. When I felt abandoned, He was stretching my faith. He knew my limits better than I did. Real faith isn’t the absence of questions; it’s the decision to trust God’s Word and stand on His promises: that His ways are higher, that we are more than conquerors, and that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Some of life’s greatest setbacks become doorways to greater purpose. God doesn’t take without preparing to place something new in our hands. Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: bound, thrown into a furnace turned up seven times hotter—yet they walked out without even the smell of smoke. The only thing the fire consumed were the cords that held them. That’s what God can do in the heat you’re facing. If God is for us, who can be against us? The hotter the fire, the closer the breakthrough.

I know what it’s like to make a mess—stringing together foolish choices until you end up living inside the consequences you created. I know what it’s like to think you’re “getting away” with sin, only to realize you were drifting further from the One who loves you. And I know the shock of being welcomed back by nail-scarred arms, not reeking of smoke but wrapped in grace. God warned me more than once. I ignored Him and blazed my own trail. Pride and self-righteousness had to be cut off. Still, He reached into the pit I’d dug, set my feet on the Rock, and guarded me when I was reduced to what felt like a stump. From that stump, He grew new strength and, in time, real fruit.

Because of that season, I know what redemption tastes like. I know what it means to be made whole by a Savior who doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, who offers love, acceptance, and forgiveness we could never earn. Discipline isn’t punishment; it’s a Father preparing us to share in His holiness. No discipline feels pleasant in the moment—but it is purposeful. I’m sorry it took the hard way for me to learn His way, yet I’m grateful for how He used even my failures to magnify His power.

So, if you’re in a pruning season, here’s the question that changed everything for me: Will I do the part God asked me to do—and trust Him to do the part only He can do? Say yes. Let Him cut what cannot carry you into your calling. Let Him burn off the cords. You may feel smaller right now, but you’re being made stronger. And there are, indeed, far better things ahead than anything you’ve left behind.