FROM PIT TO PURPOSE

I was never supposed to win.

At least that’s what my 

circumstances told me.

The house I grew up in told me one thing. The pain I carried told me another. The battles I faced tried to convince me that my future was already decided.

The statistics said I would become another product of my environment. 

My past tried to convince me that it had the authority to define me.

But what I didn’t know then was that while I was trying to survive, God was already writing a story I couldn’t see.

My name is Jacob, and this is a part of my story.

There’s a story in the Bible about a man named Joseph. Before Joseph ever stood in a palace, he spent time in a pit. Before he experienced victory, he experienced rejection. Before people saw his purpose, he had to walk through seasons where it looked like his life was falling apart.

Joseph was betrayed by his own family, abandoned, and placed in situations he never asked for. But what others saw as the end of his story, God was using as the beginning of his purpose.

When I look back at my own life, I see pieces of Joseph’s story.

I was born into circumstances that by the world’s standards should have set me up for failure. I was raised in a home surrounded by addiction, brokenness, and abuse. I never met my biological father, and 10 years ago, I experienced one of the greatest losses of my life when my mother passed away.

From a young age I learned what it felt like to live without stability.

Home was never one specific place. It was wherever we could stay. We moved constantly because we couldn’t afford rent, and I never had the comfort of knowing where I would be sleeping months later.

There was a season where my grandfather, and I were essentially homeless. We stayed wherever we could because we didn’t have anywhere else to go. We would stay somewhere for a few months, and when it didn’t work out, we would pack up and move again.

I didn’t have much.

Everything I owned could fit inside of a backpack.

I had maybe three or four shirts, two pairs of jeans, and one pair of shoes that somehow had to last until the next Christmas.

To some, those may just sound like everyday things. But when you’re a kid, those things mean more than that.

They represent feeling different.

They represent wondering why your life doesn’t look like everyone else’s.

They represent asking questions you’re too young to understand.

I remember being in middle school and depending on free school lunches because there wasn’t always food at home. There were moments where I was so hungry that I ate food out of the trash just to have something in my stomach.

Those are moments I will never forget.

There were days where I wondered if I mattered. Moments where I questioned why my life looked so different. Times where I wondered why I had to experience things no child should have to experience.

Eventually surviving became exhausting.

I was tired of adjusting.

I was tired of moving.

I was tired of feeling like I never belonged anywhere.

But what I didn’t realize was that even when I felt forgotten, God was still present.

During my eighth grade year, my aunt and uncle stepped in and took custody of me. They became the stability I had prayed for.

They showed up when I needed someone.

They taught me how to budget, how to make responsible decisions, how to work hard, and how to become an adult who could stand on his own.

They gave me a foundation that changed the direction of my life.

But even though my situation changed, the pain from my past didn’t disappear overnight.

I carried questions.

Questions like:

“Why didn’t my father want me?”

“God why did You take my mom?”

“What did I do to deserve this?”

There was a season where I walked away from God. I didn’t want a relationship with Him. I went to church, I knew what to say, and I knew how to act but inside, I was struggling.

I looked like I had faith but privately I was fighting a battle nobody knew about.

The crazy thing is even when I said I didn’t believe in God I still found myself talking to Him.

One day, I finally prayed and said, “God if You’re real I need You to show me. I need You to tell me because I feel like I’m talking to nobody.”

Not even three Sundays later, I was at the altar area when a woman I had never met walked up to me.

She told me that the Lord had placed something on her heart.

She said that God wanted me to know that He hears the conversations I have with Him in secret. That He sees me. That He cares for me. And that He has never left me.

In that moment, everything changed.

I realized something: God’s silence was never His absence.

Just because I couldn’t see Him working didn’t mean He wasn’t working.

Just because I felt forgotten didn’t mean I was forgotten.

Just like Joseph, God was with me in every season.

The seasons of uncertainty.

The seasons of pain.

The seasons where I felt overlooked.

Today my life looks completely different.

I live on my own. I pay my bills. I have food on my table and clothes on my back.

Everything may not be perfect, and I may not have everything I want but have everything I need.

And most importantly, I have Jesus.

I no longer live with a mindset of lack. I live with gratitude. I live with purpose. I live knowing God has brought me too far to forget me now.

I have chosen a different path.

I refuse to become another statistic.

I am a generational curse breaker.

I believe God has called me to be one of the few in my family who chooses to live differently - to live a godly life, to be present, and to change the future of my family.

Joseph’s story reminds me that what was meant to destroy me God can use to develop me.

Genesis 50:20 says, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.”

This is my testimony.

I was never supposed to win based on where I came from.

I was never supposed to break the cycle.

I was never supposed to make it this far.

But God had the final say.

The same God who was with Joseph in the pit, in the prison, and in the palace, was with me through every chapter of my story.

So, if you feel defined by your past remember this:

Your past is something you lived through, but it is not who you are.

Be strong. Be courageous. Trust in the LORD.

Because the same God who carried you through yesterday is the same God who is preparing your tomorrow.

JACOB AYERS