I’ve been mentally formulating this for a few months at this point, unsure where to start or how to tell it, and I’m just in a place of such overwhelming gratitude that I want to start without being sure. And honestly, that’s really how it all started— with not being sure.
On June 24th, 2024 I hit a level of brokenness, anxiety, and despair that left me with only one option: reach out to God. Not fully believing that it would do much, but understanding that I was in a corner I could not get myself out of, that’s what I did. With desperation and something like blind resolve, I wrote this in my journal:
Dear God, please
Hear me out, I know it’s been a couple years
Since I reached out and said hello…
I didn’t invent that string of words. NF put them together. But I feel them so strongly. It’s been a couple years (or more) since I’ve been dependent on You God. Since I’ve reached out and said hello and will you lead me in my life? Today’s devotion was about emotion and that is the theme of my life. Our emotions are useful but “they become a danger to us and the world whenever they are detached from God’s word.”
“Emotions aren’t the problem; the flesh is.”
My emotions are high right now. In many ways that I can’t seem to escape or avoid. I have a lot of anger, both old and new, and I am feeling very sad and lonely. In a lot of ways I feel I am in a season where my flesh is being denied constantly and I suspect it’s to help me start reaching out to You and being dependent on You. I fall into the self-reliance pattern and build up idols in my life all the time. I want external things to fulfill me and to take away my inherent loneliness. I want to fill the hole in my soul with people and activities, and I have for a long time. But those things are being taken away and it’s painful but it’s You isn’t it? Prying things out of my desperate, misguided hands so that I’m left in a place where the only One I can turn to is You. I sense this is true, and yet still I struggle. Still I want my own way. If I can ask something today it’s will You please help me in the right direction? Please help me turn to You and find peace, find fulfillment, and find my loneliness fading because You are always here.
After that initial journal entry, I continued writing, praying, and pouring my heart out every single day for a whole year. I continued trusting that there was light at the end of the tunnel, even while nothing seemed to be changing. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was about to walk (limp, crawl, collapse) through a season of the most shocking and concentrated pain I have ever experienced. A season in which God answered these prayers a hundredfold by truly bringing me to the end of myself.
And I thank Him and praise Him every day for doing so.
It seems strange to be thankful for a season of pain, but I am. Because what I started that June day, on the cusp of total life disaster, was the first building block in the foundation of the relationship with God that would save my life.
Maybe someday I’ll tell my full story, or more significant parts. This isn’t where I want to do all of that, so I will just give the briefest summary of the life-altering events that led me to the path I’m on now:
Between June 2024 and October 2025 I got married (for the second time), left my full time job, discovered an emotional affair, later discovered the affair was actually physical, did everything I could think of to make the marriage work, and was ultimately left for another woman. I don’t remember the summer of 2025. I know I stopped being able to eat and my weight dipped to 99lbs. I know that my biggest fear of being unworthy and unlovable seemed to be coming true. I know that I was intermittently suicidal. The specifics of that time are largely lost, and I believe that’s a blessing.
The subsequent few months after October 2025 included the discovery of other betrayals in different shades and forms, and the loss of some long-time friendships that I once considered vital. It was like God spent two years gently dismantling every idol I had built, and every relationship that did not align with His purpose for me. He took my hand, patiently waited for my “yes” and said:
“Hold on. This is gonna hurt, but I promise it is for your good and My glory, and I am right here with you.”
I was blind to what was really going on, until I was ready to open my eyes and see (or until He put it so close to my face that I physically couldn’t ignore it any longer). God didn’t design my pain, He was trying to rescue me from it while I clung to it desperately. He saw what I wanted, what I craved, and that it could never fulfill me because the hole in my heart/mind/spirit/soul was God-sized and Jesus-shaped. He knew that He had bigger and better plans for me, and I couldn’t come close to fulfilling them where I was.
He rebuilt my life from scratch in the most beautiful way. When I look back, I see His fingerprints all over my story. Every seemingly ordinary moment, every interaction, every person who prayed or encouraged, every door that closed, every opportunity that arose. Every time I thought I wasn’t going to make it, but somehow I did.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth met me in the depths of my despair. The God of the Universe, in His infinite love, reached down and drew me out of a situation that was slowly killing me. He breathed life into me. He taught me what love really is and what it looks like. He taught me that I don’t have to earn it— He gives it freely because He wants me. He helped me learn my identity as His daughter, and how to finally accept the perfect love He had been holding out to me for my whole life.
I seized that gift of grace with both hands and ran to my Father’s arms. It was the best decision I’ve ever made. I was radically saved, radically changed, miraculously healed. The anxiety I once had is gone. The depression I once had is gone. The anger I once had is gone. The loneliness, the need for approval, the dread, the discouragement, the weight I carried through each day. All gone.
The things of this world that once seemed so important to me have faded to the background, while I live in the technicolor landscape of a life aimed at eternity.
Today I can say I have never felt so alive. I have never been so happy, fulfilled, and at peace. Every day I wake up thankful. Not just thankful, but excited. I still experience pain and struggles, of course… but I experience them while maintaining a deep sense of peace (the peace that passes understanding, can I get an amen?!) and those things no longer have the ability to steal my joy. Not because of anything I do, but because that is what the Lord, in all His kindness, promises to those who trust in Him.
My life now looks nothing like I ever expected or imagined. He has gifted me so many people I can pour into, and who pour into me. Every day is a new adventure that I’m on with Jesus by my side. I’m learning to hear God’s voice, and He speaks to me often. He is teaching me and helping me grow every day. I don’t think I can ever fully explain with words what it feels like to have this deep, intimate relationship with my Creator, the same way I could never explain seeing a color that doesn’t exist, or hearing a song woven with notes no one has heard. It’s… everything. He is everything.
I am forever changed. And I can’t wait to see what’s next.
“He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.”
Psalm 147:3
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8
“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Romans 10:9
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:38-39
“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:7
Meg Decker 
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