More from Kimberly Butnick

When I was asked to be a guest blogger and talk about my devotion called “More to the Story,” I was so excited. Sitting down to write it became another “aha moment” though. I didn’t realize it had been almost two years since I had written the devotion. To say a lot has happened since I wrote those words is putting it lightly.

The year 2025 was not to be one of my favorite years. I thought about what I had written in “More to the Story,” and I realized that I probably should take it to heart a bit more. Things seemed to be going down hill fast. We had to put our dog down on January 2nd, and then on January 21st my best friend passed away unexpectedly. Things seemed to become more intense in the world in general, and then in March my aunt got ill. Yes, she was eighty-seven years old. But why was God taking everyone and everything I loved? She got better, but then my father got very ill. He died eighteen days after I received the news that my devotion had been accepted by The Upper Room.

The excitement I felt about being published was diminished by my father’s death. Then my mother fell and almost lost her eye two months later. On top of everything else, I broke my tibia. After that, I found out I needed knee surgery to remove loose bone fragments around my knee that had been causing pain for years. What else could happen? 

Then when my world started to feel about as unpredictable as the weather in Wisconsin. I found out my daughter was having a baby—our first grandchild. With the hope of this new little girl, I started to pray more and more. I found God through the storms of everyday life and the typhoons of watching loved ones die and suffer with diseases that seemed impossible to recover from. I also started to ask God to help me use my gift—the gift God gave me—to make a difference in another way.

In December, after almost three years of work on my teaching memoir, I sent it off to publishers with very little hope of hearing anything other than “thanks, but no thanks.” To my surprise, I received a letter suggesting changes in my format and a request to hopefully resubmit after revisions. Hope started to grow as I ended up getting asked to write this blog about my devotion and what happened since I wrote it. In the middle of trying to get this together, my granddaughter, Lucille Scott, entered the world at a whopping 5 lbs 15 ounces. Nothing could surpass the joy of her birth, but an invitation to speak about my gift of writing at a writers’ retreat came in as a close second.

God has seen me through so many storms.  The rains haven’t stopped completely, but there have been more days with sunshine and smiles than before. I am blessed, and God keeps using me to help others through the gifts that were bestowed upon me.

Do I still struggle and wonder where God is in the world and in my daily life? Yes, but not as often. Through prayer and hope, I find God working in my life everyday.