“Do you see these scars? They are not marks of a victim.

They are metals of a survivor.

God did not waste my pain.

He used it.

He will use yours, too.

” Boys who had seen their parents die found comfort in the words of someone who understood.

Girls who had been sold as slaves by ISIS found courage in the testimony of someone who knew that God redeems the irredeemable.

Sarah, now 18 years old, studied psychology with a focus on trauma.

I want to help others as I was helped, she explained.

Her goal was to become a therapist specializing in survivors of persecution.

Mom, she told me one night, I spent years hating God for what happened to us, hating dad for not lying, hating myself for not being able to protect them.

Yet now I see that experience as horrible as it was gave me purpose.

I know why I am alive.

To help others find healing in their own crosses.

My own healing came more slowly.

I suffered nightmares for 3 years.

Flashbacks.

Severe anxiety.

There were days when I couldn’t get out of bed.

Days when I questioned everything.

Why did God save us but not others? I asked Yousef, “Why did we survive but 143 from Karakosh did not?” My husband had no easy answers.

I don’t know love.

I don’t understand God’s ways.

I only know that he is good, that he has purpose, that no pain is wasted in his hands.

I found healing in two places.

First, by helping other refugee women.

We started a support group at the church, women who had lost husbands, mothers who had seen their children injured, widows, orphans.

We sat together.

We cried together.

We healed together.

Second, by writing.

The notebook that Aisha gave me in herbal filled up.

Then another and another.

Writing became therapy.

Every word was a release.

Every page a victory over trauma.

This testimony you are hearing is the result of those years of processing.

I did not write from a place of perfect victory.

I wrote from the trenches of healing in process.

From the reality that some scars never completely disappear, but God uses them anyway.

2024, 10 years after the crucifixion, a decade of ministry.

Thousands of lives touched, hundreds converted, dozens of churches planted by people inspired by our testimony.

Yousef is now the senior pastor of a congregation in Ammon.

350 members, half refugees, the other half Jordanians, converted Muslims, awakened nominal Christians, a diverse community united by radical faith.

The broken concrete foundations of Carakos have become a place of pilgrimage.

Thousands of Middle Eastern Christians have visited.

They have touched the cracks.

They have prayed.

They have found hope in broken stones.

These foundations remind us, Yousef says on every anniversary, that what the enemy designs for death, God turns into testimony.

That no cross is final.

That even the hardest concrete breaks when God speaks.

Daniel is studying to be a pastor.

Sarah graduated as a therapist and works with trauma survivors.

I lead the women’s ministry in our church, a family that was almost destroyed, now multiplying life.

The scars on Yousef and Daniel’s wrists remain.

10 years later, they are still there.

Perfect circles, pink, soft, permanent reminders of August 6th, 2014.

“Would you wish not to have these marks?” a young man once asked Daniel.

My son smiled.

“These scars have opened more doors for me than any diploma.

They have given me more credibility than any degree.

They are my credentials to speak of a God who saves.

I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

” If you have come this far in this testimony, you might be wondering, “What does this story have to do with my life?” Everything.

Because even though you may not have been literally crucified, you have your own crosses, your own moments where life nailed you to the ground, where the pain was so intense that you thought you wouldn’t survive, where God seemed absent.

Your cross can be a disease that steals your hope.

It can be a loss that takes your breath away.

It can be a betrayal that shatters your heart.

It can be an addiction that keeps you bound.

It can be depression that whispers lies to you in the dark.

What I learned in the square of Karakosh is that God does not always prevent crosses.

Sometimes he allows them, not because he is cruel, because he has a bigger plan than our understanding.

Yousef and Daniel were not taken down from the crosses before being nailed.

They were nailed.

They suffered.

They bled.

Yet at the sixth hour, when everything seemed lost, God spoke.

Not before.

At the perfect moment.

Maybe you are in your third hour.

You have just been nailed.

The pain is fresh, the despair overwhelming.

You feel that God has abandoned you.

Or perhaps you are in your fifth hour.

You have endured for so long that you wonder if you can hold on for one more hour.

The strength is running out.

The hope too.

Let me tell you something.

Your sixth hour is coming.

The moment when God breaks your cross.

Maybe not in the way you expect.

Maybe not when you want.

But it will come.

The crosses of Yousef and Daniel fell after 6 hours.

Not after 5.

Not after 4.

Six.

God has perfect timing, even if it seems like an eternity to us.

I have known people with similar stories.

Not literal crucifixion, but equally real crosses.

A woman with terminal cancer who was healed in the chemotherapy room.

Doctors with no explanation.

A man on the brink of suicide who heard an audible voice stopping him.

A shattered marriage that was restored when everything seemed impossible.

God still breaks crosses.

He still heals wounds.

He still turns death into life.

However, and this is important, sometimes healing is not physical.

Sometimes it is emotional, spiritual.

Sometimes God does not break your cross, but gives you strength to carry it with dignity.

Like Paul, whose thorn was not removed, but whose grace was sufficient.

I do not promise that your story will end like ours.

That would not be honest.

I know martyrs whose crosses never fell, whose bodies remained nailed, but their spirits free, their testimonies eternal.

What I do promise is this.

No pain is wasted if you give it to God.

Every tear has purpose.

Every scar, a story, every cross, potential for resurrection.

The concrete foundations in Karakosh cracked from the inside out.

The cracks began at the center and expanded.

That is how God works.

He starts at your center in the depths of your pain and from there breaks the impossible.

Maybe today you are listening to this because you need a miracle.

Because your crosses are killing you.

Because you see no way out.

I want to pray for you.

Not a pretty prayer, an honest prayer.

Heavenly Father, today I lift up to you every person who hears these words.

You know their crosses, the ones others see and the ones no one knows.

You know their wounds, their scars, their hopelessness.

Lord, just as you broke the concrete in Caracosh, break whatever is pinning them to the ground.

Give strength for the next hour, hope for the next day.

And when their sixth hour comes, reveal yourself with power, with glory, so that they may know that you are God, that no cross is final, that every death can become resurrection.

In the name of Jesus, who intimately knows the pain of the cross and the power of the empty tomb.

Amen.

If you prayed this prayer sincerely, welcome to the family.

You have begun a journey that will include crosses, yes, but also resurrections, dark nights, but glorious dawns.

Share this testimony.

Someone in your life needs to hear it.

Someone is in their fifth hour, about to give up.

Your sharing could be the push they need to hold on for one more hour.

Comment on which country you are listening from.

We want to pray for you specifically.

Join this community of people who believe that God still breaks crosses.

And remember, your scars have purpose.

Do not hide them.

Do not be ashamed of them.

They are credentials of survival, medals of faith, testimonies of a God who turns broken stones into altars of worship.

10 years after the square, we continue to tell the story because as long as there are crosses, we need to remember that there is a God who breaks them.

Your story is not over.

Even if you are nailed down, even if you are bleeding, even if it is your fifth hour, the sixth hour is coming.

And when it comes, the world will know that your God is real.

May God bless you.

May he sustain you in your crosses.

May he give you victory in his perfect timing.

 

« Prev