“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

As a Christian, this verse has always been special to me, but in the past few months, it has become my go-to scripture whenever I need peace, hope, comfort, or just feel overwhelmed with anxiety. What I love the most about this verse is that tiny, three letter word “all.” In our daily lives, it can be so easy to see how God uses the better things in our life for our good, but you know what? He’s just as interested and capable of using the bad (even the seemingly insignificant and meaningless) for our good as well.

Last semester, I took Human Anatomy with one of the toughest professors in the Biology department at my university and when I was feeling stressed and scared, my only thoughts were “why am I in this class? I had the chance to get into another section with a different professor whose class is much easier and now my GPA and future are going to suffer because I passed up a great opportunity.” When I was studying for more than ten hours for a single exam and waking up at 5:30 a.m. to study even more, only to barely scrape by with Cs, my first thought was not, “this is God working on my behalf” (and that definitely wasn’t what I was thinking when I was failing almost every quiz put in front of me). When I was crying because I thought my plans were falling apart, I wasn’t considering that from God’s perspective, things were falling into place exactly as He intended.

But do you know what happened through that? At the end of that very trying semester, I went to take an entrance exam for my college’s nursing program and I made an almost perfect score on the Anatomy section! I honestly could not believe it. The entire semester all I could think about was regret and how that class was creating such a mess in my life, but despite all of the bad, God was there working in the details of my life- using something, something that I thought could only yield negativity, for my benefit.

I know how it is to read that word “all” and wonder how- how all those nights filled with tears, how everything that feels like it’s breaking you, how your heavy heart and burdens can all serve a purpose- how can all of this be used for your good? How can God possibly be working for your good in this mess, in this tragedy, in this sea of hopelessness? Our lives (mistakes, grievances, all of it) are a canvas that He takes and transforms into a masterpiece because He loves us and wants us to see that His love and grace have no bounds or special requirements. Even in your darkest and most weary moments, He is crafting your will and using you in ways that are far beyond your understanding.

God works like that in all of our lives. No matter what you’ve done or where you’ve been, God can take all of those events in your life and turn them into a beautiful testimony. It would be so easy for God to choose to only use the good and the times that you lived to pleased Him, but that’s not who He is. Whether it’s sins of your past or a situation that has caused you so much grief and sorrow, God wants to take those things- the things that hurt an unbearable amount- and make them a crucial part of your story and who you are in His image. In some cases, I have witnessed God take the mess in one person’s life and not only use it for their good, but also allow them to minister to others and be used as proof of His goodness and mercy. But regardless of how God uses your bad, all of these aspects come together to give you your very own, unique and blessed story that only He could be the Author of. So, remember in all of your moments, God is on your side and carefully using each of them to write your story. You don’t have to understand everything that happens, you just have to trust that God is using your circumstances for a greater good.