Courage in the Face of Change

By Ashley Kelton

God's Brave Women - Ashely's Story

It was a Friday morning in late May, and I was playing with my son and a friend in our playroom. We were anxiously awaiting the return of my husband, who had been gone for almost 2 months for training; he would be arriving just in time for us to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary. 11:08 a.m. my phone rang. I sprinted to a separate room to answer the much-anticipated call.

I answered the phone and there was silence on the other end. My stomach dropped and I knew it wasn’t good. Finally, my husband spoke four words that would change the entire course of our lives: “I didn’t make it.”

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12

Change. In the past year, my family has experienced multiple significant changes. We began 2019 with anticipation of beginning a new career in the Air Force and a move from home. Three months into living in our new home, my husband called to say that the career we had made all the changes for was no longer in the plan.

Shock, hurt, embarrassment, and family tension followed. We had a difficult time talking to each other and as far as family and friends were concerned, conversations were, simply put, excruciatingly awkward. There were few people we felt we could truly turn to for encouragement and advice. We were tormented daily with so many questions. Questions of identity, purpose, and God’s plan assaulted us daily.

The devil works in our lives. The Bible says that the devil “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) I have never seen the devil more obviously work in my life than in moments of change.

It’s in the change that I found myself trapped in a spiral of unhealthy thought patterns. I believed the lie that I no longer mattered, that God had moved past me. How could I ever believe those lies? How could I ever believe that God does not care for me? Those thoughts were from the enemy, but I was lost in my own anger and confusion. Yet even in my moments of loss, God found me. He found me in a study I was going through on the armor of God.