The Worst Day of My Life Became the Strongest Reason I Trust God

There are days in life that become bookmarks.

You know the ones.

You can remember exactly where you were, what you were doing, and how life was forever divided into "before" and "after."

For me, that day was in April of 2017.

I wasn't climbing Mount Everest. I wasn't on some great adventure. I was simply doing my job, delivering car batteries.

Funny how ordinary days have a habit of becoming extraordinary without asking our permission.

The weather changed. The roads became slick. I slowed down because I knew the conditions were getting worse.

The other driver didn't.

In a matter of seconds, everything changed.

A head-on collision sent my cargo van spinning into another truck. Before it was over, I was trapped inside the wreckage. The firewall had wrapped around my legs. The batteries I had been delivering were smoldering in the back of the van. My lungs were damaged. Bones and ribs were broken. For weeks I lay in a hospital bed, followed by months of painful recovery.

If someone had asked me that day, "Do you understand what God is doing?" my honest answer would have been, "Not even a little."

Isn't that where many of us find ourselves?

We don't struggle because God isn't present.

We struggle because we can't see the whole picture.

We're trying to judge the entire story by one painful chapter.

I wish I could tell you that I never questioned anything.

I can't.

I wondered why.

I wondered what came next.

I wondered if life would ever feel normal again.

And yes... I even wondered why God would allow something like this to happen.

But here's what I've learned.

God rarely explains everything... but He faithfully walks with us through everything.

Looking back now, I realize something I couldn't see from the hospital bed.

God wasn't absent.

He was everywhere.

He was in the first responders who worked tirelessly to get me out of the van.

He was in the doctors and nurses who cared for me.

He was in every prayer that was prayed on my behalf.

He was in every visitor, every encouraging phone call, every meal, every act of kindness.

And perhaps most importantly...

He was quietly preparing me for a calling I never would have imagined.

After months of recovery, God opened the door for me to become the pastor of a little church in Iron Mountain, Michigan.

Would I have chosen that path?

Absolutely.

Would I have chosen the accident that led me there?

Not a chance.

Yet somehow, God took the worst day of my life and used it to shape one of the greatest blessings I've ever known.

That's just like Him.

Joseph was sold by his brothers before he saved a nation.

Moses spent forty years in the wilderness before leading Israel.

David spent years running for his life before wearing a crown.

Even Jesus carried a cross before wearing the crown of glory.

God has always had a habit of bringing resurrection out of what looked like defeat.

These days I still live with reminders of that accident.

Some aches don't disappear.

Some scars never completely fade.

Every now and then my body reminds me that April of 2017 really happened.

But instead of seeing those reminders as evidence that God failed me, I've come to see them as reminders that God carried me.

Every scar tells a story.

Not just of what I survived.

But of Who brought me through it.

People sometimes ask me why I trust God so much.

The answer isn't because life has been easy.

It's because life hasn't been easy.

I've watched Him remain faithful when I couldn't see the next step.

I've felt His peace when circumstances gave me every reason to panic.

I've experienced His strength when mine had completely run out.

Could He have prevented the accident?

Of course He could have.

But instead, He chose to walk through it with me—and somewhere along the road, He transformed my greatest tragedy into one of my greatest testimonies.

So if you're reading this while you're living through your own "April 2017," let me encourage you.

Don't judge God's faithfulness by today's circumstances.

You may be standing in the middle of a chapter that won't make sense until much later.

One day you'll look back and realize what you couldn't see while you were living it.

God wasn't writing the end of your story.

He was writing the beginning of a testimony.

And that's why I trust Him.

Not because I understand everything He does.

But because after everything we've been through together...

I've learned that even on the worst day of my life, He never stopped being good.