How to Be Grateful for Being Lost, Depressed, and Emotionally Abused
On my 50th birthday, God gave me a present I was hesitant to unwrap. Looking back, I see that this gift was necessary for me to step fully into everything God had for me. But it didn’t look like a present at all! Receiving it felt like the sharp, piercing cut of a knife. It was a scalpel in the hands of the Great Physician. I needed heart surgery to live, and God loved me enough to do what I could not do for myself.
Grateful For What Didn’t Look Like a Gift
By then, I was in my second marriage. My second husband was showing signs of bipolar disorder and self-medicating with alcohol. Life wasn’t easy. I felt like a piece of an old knit sweater being unraveled, pulled apart, and undone all at once. How could I have ended up like this? There I was, a mother with two children, trying to provide safety while somehow learning to be both parents at once.
That was when God decided to break through the walls I had built over the years to keep my feelings in and His truth out. Exactly one week before my life fell apart, Jesus rescued me.
How could I be grateful for being lost, depressed, and emotionally abused? I’ll never forget the sense of detachment and overwhelm. Yet God used the weight of those very things to break through to me.
The light of Jesus shone on me, and suddenly I understood how far down in a pit I had sunk. Jesus brought me out. He set my feet on the rock of His presence, put His arm around me, and never let me go.
His peace pierced my existence, igniting something eternal. It was as if my heart had suddenly become a roaring bonfire. I was alive–fully alive. I was His, and He was mine.
During one of the most difficult seasons I’ve ever endured, God taught me what I needed to know about who He is so that I wouldn’t be tempted to doubt Him again. It may sound strange, but I am grateful for that time.
Why would I be grateful for suffering? Why would I look back with gratitude on dysfunction and emotional abuse, on a time of lack and fear? Because lack became abundance, and fear turned into faith! Without that season, I would never have known Jesus.
Looking back, I can see that Jesus had been pursuing me all my life, but the lies and trauma I experienced had built a wall around my heart. Built brick by brick, tall and solid, it kept me from hearing the voice of truth.
I was deeply depressed at that time, often wondering if life even mattered. I know one thing: I stayed because I had children. I will be forever grateful for those gifts.
Like a weighted blanket pulled too tightly around my shoulders and chest, the unrelenting anxiety and depression enveloped me in numbness. But that is exactly where Jesus met me twenty-five years ago.
A Life Worthy of Gratitude
One night, on my knees in front of a worn tan corduroy couch, I cried out for help and asked Jesus into my heart. I had wasted so many years, but God’s Word promised that He would restore the years the locusts had eaten (Joel 2:25).
God began to fulfill that promise by digging with me through the layers of my heart’s soil. Jesus showed me how to hold my wounds with open hands. As I allowed myself to feel the pain and trust Him with it, the hard and jagged earth became fine white sand in His presence. As I offered it to Jesus, the sand slipped smoothly through my fingers and fell to the ground. That very sand became the path beneath my feet, and Jesus walked with me on it one step at a time forward.
I have spent every day since waking before dawn to start my day with Jesus. Each morning is a new beginning. I choose to be thankful. Gratitude is a choice we get to make over and over again. Gratitude is a discipline. We can choose to look for the good, the light, and the beauty that exists all around us.
Although circumstances may bring suffering, in Christ I have peace. Peace is not a circumstance; it is a person: Jesus.
If you, too, are going through something that feels impossible, I can promise you this: Call on Jesus, and He will come. He is there, waiting. Even if you don’t know Him, He knows you. He loves you. And He has an abundant life for you—a life worthy of gratitude.
Meet Amanda Schaefer
Amanda Schaefer is a global podcast host, award-winning author, and international speaker. She carries with her the goodness of looking through a lens of gratitude. The “A Cup of Gratitude” podcast is global, currently reaching more than 154 countries and more than 3900 cities. As a speaker, Amanda teaches the Bible while challenging audiences to live the way that God intends. She has a way of making scripture come alive through everyday examples.
Amanda’s books include Crumbled: A Place for Broken People, Daily Instaration, and Holy Plot Twists: God is Still Writing Your Story. Holy Plot Twists recently won first place in the 2026 Christian Indie Awards; it won a Christlit Literary award, placed in the finals of the Golden Scroll Awards, and has just won a prestigious Selah Christian Literary award.
Amanda is a contributing author in Life Changing Stories, One Chance, One Dance: Don’t Miss the Moments of Your Life, and Courageous Voices Unlocked. Her books are down to earth and packed with biblical truth. She has also been a guest blogger on the Brave Women Series, The Uncommon Normal, The Love Offering, the Warrior Women Series, The Faith to Flourish, and Butterfly Living. She has been a keynote speaker on stage and online. Recently, Amanda was interviewed by Bold Journey and Canvas Rebel magazines.
Where to find her . . .
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
twyla
Twyla Franz is a relentless believer in direction over pace, and a proponent of ripple-effect living. A blueberry tea drinker, sourdough bread baker, minimalist wanna-be, chalk painter, mom of three, and wife to her first and forever. She plays worship songs loud and on repeat, and numbers her thanks to remember gratitude is a before, not an after. As an introvert who now has a village of neighbors, she believes a meaningful life with the people right in front of you and God spilling into your relationships is possible.
