Purpose Beyond Pain: Learning to Trust God's Grace Through Life's Trials

By Paula Byabagamba

Like every girl, Paula Byabagamba dreamed of a life full of love, protection, joy, and happiness. But those dreams were shattered when she found herself all alone, unprotected, and vulnerable. Feeling unworthy and unloved, with more questions than answers, she uttered desperate cries of worship to God for answers. As a result, she developed a deep and personal relationship with the Lord. Now free from anger, hatred, shame, and unforgiveness, she tells the story of her life in Purpose Beyond Pain.
This is a tale of a girl who embarks on a journey from a refugee camp, travels to a scary city full of people speaking different languages, returns home to her war-torn country, Rwanda, and then eventually moves to Canada. In her journey, she discovers the power of God and His amazing grace that covers you when you’re vulnerable and naked. If you find yourself lost in the pain of your circumstances, this story will remind you that there is hope for a better, satisfying, and whole life. Paula demonstrates that temporary life circumstances don’t have to change the authentic person you were created to become. We have a God-given power, through the Holy Spirit, to change our lives and the lives of those around us for the better.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Word Alive Press
• Release date: Jun 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781486615483

Book preview

What people are saying

Purpose Beyond Pain is the captivating and precious tale of Paula’s life journey. I was moved by the depth of this compelling story, where Paula rises from glory to glory and strength to strength. I recommend this amazing book to all."

—Bishop Dr. Fabian Lwamba

John Maxwell Team, Global Initiatives

A powerful story of a woman of great inner strength and perseverance. She didn’t know that God created her with these attributes but she discovered and is still discovering how powerful she is in Him. This story isn’t finished yet—I can’t wait to read the sequel!"

—Heather MacDonald

PURPOSE BEYOND PAIN

Copyright © 2019 by Paula Byabagamba

All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.

The views and opinions expressed in this publication belong solely to the author, and do not reflect those of Word Alive Press or any of its employees.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version, which is in the public domain. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-4866-1548-3

Word Alive Press

119 De Baets Street, Winnipeg, MB R2J 3R9

www.wordalivepress.ca

Cataloguing in Publication may be obtained through Library and Archives Canada

To my mother and my two boys.

Contents

Introduction

1. Life in the Refugee Camp

2. A City Called Forgiveness

3. Motherless Child

4. Defined by God

5. Traces of My Mother Everywhere

6. Broken Hearts

7. Angels in Disguise

8. Right Intentions and Wrong Reasons

9. Introducing Mr. & Mrs. Miserable

10. Who Said I Wouldn’t Make It?

11. Finding Purpose and Peace

12. A Hand to Hold

13. Forgiving Me

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Introduction

What hurts us most in life aren’t the negative words people speak to us or about us, but what we choose to answer to. Sometimes we don’t realize that we have a choice in the matter, that we can direct our energies to specific areas and disregard others. Learning to deal with pain by placing emphasis on the elements in life that lifted me up, rather than those that dragged me down was, for me, a long time coming.

It’s said in medicine that pain relates to a sensation that hurts. If you feel pain, it hurts, you feel discomfort, distress and perhaps agony, depending on the severity of it. Pain can be steady and constant, in which case it may be an ache. It might be a throbbing pain—a pulsating pain. The pain could have a pinching sensation, or a stabbing one.¹

Whether pain is physical, emotional, or mental, it’s still pain, and it hurts. Only the person who experiences the pain can accurately describe its severity, as it’s an individual experience. Emotional pain can be caused by the environments in which we grow up, the backgrounds from which we come, the families into which we’re born and raised, the relationships to which we’re committed, and the marriages we enter. That was my kind of pain—pain caused by the worst circumstances that surrounded the refugee camp in which I was born and raised, the city in which I lived, and the marriage into which I stumbled.

Those circumstances have, on many occasions throughout my life, brought me to my knees in search of a savior who would come to my rescue. I invite you, in the story that follow, to walk with me on my life’s journey. Though I have lived through heartache and tragedy along the way, the understanding of my pain literally introduced me to a purposeful life of appreciation.

Life is not about the painful journey, or the rejections and disappointments you might repeatedly experience. It’s about the hand of God, which is ever present to ease your pain and embrace you for the person you have become.

It’s not about people who have turned their backs on you, but about the friend you develop in Jesus, a friend who’ll stay with you through every season of life.

It’s not about lost love, but about the unwavering, unconditional love of God that is able to reignite your love and give you opportunity to understand and embrace seasonal miracles.

It’s not about the wayward dreams you had for your life, but the power of God to resurrect that which you feared had been lost.

As I share my story with you, I also share the unwavering truth that the grace of God is sufficient to sustain us through our struggles, to heal our wounds in the aftermath, and to lift us up to a bright new day and a glorious future in His name.

chapter one

Life in the

Refugee Camp

When people hear the words refugee camp, they conjure up images of poverty and despair, displaced people living under an oppressive cloud of uncertainty. This was my reality, this was the world into which I was born and spent the formative years of my childhood.

While most residents of a refugee camp have fled another home, for me the refugee camp was home. It was the baseline for all of my life experiences. Though it was a difficult introduction to the world, it was also the only way of life I’d ever known.

The refugee camp in which I was born was located in the western part of Uganda. My parents were Rwandan refugees, forced from their homeland by civil war. Leaving to seek refuge elsewhere wasn’t a choice they made lightly, it was imperative. It was a matter of life or death. If they wanted to survive, circumstances demanded they abandon their home. After wandering in deserted, unfamiliar places with the sole goal of survival, they eventually ended up in the Ugandan refugee camp.

I have clear and vivid memories of my father’s evening stories. With tears in his eyes, he’d describe Rwanda and the home he’d been forced to abandon. He was nostalgic about what Rwanda had been before the devastation of war. It was like heaven. A country of a thousand hills, he would say.

A judge in his homeland, my father had been well respected and revered in his community. He’d owned a great number of livestock with herdsmen to look after them. His position in the community and the huge number of cattle he owned defined him as a wealthy man. Until everything changed.

In that famine-stricken refugee camp, in a house made of wood, reeds, and mud, we worried that if it rained hard enough, the house would actually crumble down onto us. Even as a small child, I recognized in my father’s eyes that the only life he was left with centred on retelling us the same story of what had once been, but now was lost.

At times I try to imagine the enormity of fear and trauma they must have experienced. They left their home, running from killers wielding machetes. They tried to escape with some of their cattle, but the animals died along the difficult journey that followed. In Uganda, my parents found themselves in league with other refugees in a forest populated by lions, leopards, and other wild animals. Of the refugees who’d escaped the guns and machetes of civil war, many were then stalked, killed, and eaten by the predators of the forest. My parents were among the few who survived.

The poverty and hunger in the refugee camp led to hopelessness and despair. Children didn’t grow up with dreams, but instead lived in fear. The conditions provided a fertile breeding ground for sickness. Children suffered chronic diarrhea and were exposed to measles, polio, malaria, and respiratory and skin infections. People— children in particular—were dying every day. With one clinic for the whole camp, staffed with unqualified doctors and nurses, death was just around the corner.

When I was a little girl, early one morning my mother found me struggling to breathe. She rushed me to the clinic where the staff did the unthinkable. They removed the bridge of my nose, insisting that it would solve my breathing issues. I almost died from the surgical complications and continued to have breathing problems.

Later, while walking home from school one day, a childhood friend of mine complained of having a headache. There was no relief to offer her other than stopping momentarily in the shade of a tree. When we eventually made it back to camp, she drank some water. We assumed that in due time she would recover. Within two hours, she was gone. I will never forget her.

My childhood was marred