People often say, “Don’t dwell on the past. Just focus on the future.” But for me, reflecting on the past is how I see God’s hand at work—even through heartbreak, loss, and moments when it felt like everything was falling apart.

I was born in Ethiopia 20 years ago, which feels crazy to say now. My sister Evie and I went through a lot as kids at a very young age. We lost both of our parents, had to leave our family, and were told we’d be sent to a country that we’d never heard of before—America.

Life in Ethiopia didn’t seem all that bad because I didn’t know any other world. I assumed everybody else lived in the condition that I lived because the community around me lived that way. We had no electricity, no running water, no paved roads, and we lived in grass huts out in the jungle, far away from the rest of society.  

Although our living conditions didn’t seem bad, I knew something else was wrong. My mother had some type of illness and was always in pain. I still don’t know how she got the pills she took because we didn’t have any doctors close by. All I remember is that she took them. I also remember the countless times I saw pain in her eyes as she sat next to the front door with her hand on her stomach.

Losing Everything

I get tears every time I recall that memory because her pain never went away, and it eventually took her away. I was around five years old when she died, and I knew life was never going to be the same as losing her. One of the most vivid memories I have is sitting on a lady's lap during the funeral. As she held me tight, I fell into her arms and started bawling.

My dad was a farmer who worked tirelessly. I loved spending time with him, and we grew corn, beans, coffee, and teff (the tiniest grain in the world). He would let me help him plant seeds and gave me the job of watching our goats. The best memory I recall of him was when we would sit out under the stars, and he would hum these wonderful songs.

But not long after Mom passed away, I lost my dad. His death was a total shock because I don’t remember him in pain like my mom. All I can recall was taking care of goats when one of my brothers came to tell me the terrible news. Despite being just a kid, the devastation I felt is tough to put into words.

I never fully figured out why my parents died, but I was told it may have been due to unclean water and malnutrition, among other factors.

After their deaths, my sister Evie and I were taken in by our uncle. He had his own family but wanted to help us however he could. He decided to put us up for adoption and sent us to an orphanage so that we could have a better life. But this was not to be, and the next year felt like an eternity for a five-year-old as we bounced from one orphanage to the next.

Eventually, the orphanage staff told us that we were going to be adopted and have a new family, but we didn’t understand what that meant. All we knew was that one week we were in Ethiopia, and the next we were in California, trying to adjust to a completely different family, a brand new country, and a whole new way of life.

Growing up in an adoptive family was hard for us and our parents. While Evie embraced them, I still held on to the old memory of losing both my parents and didn’t believe for a second that this new family was going to work out. This made it very difficult for me to form a bond and treat them like my family.

With their unorthodox parenting skills combined with my stubbornness and unwillingness to give them a chance, we never fully figured things out. I’d love to say things worked out in the end, but that wouldn’t be the full truth. I was under my parents' roof until the age of fifteen, and then they decided they’d had enough. Things weren’t working out, and we kept clashing heads. I came to Idaho to stay with my grandma, and it has been my home for the past five years.

God Can Use Any Painful Experience You’ve Faced

There is still so much about my past that I’d love to understand, and let’s just say I have a lot of questions for God when I meet him face to face.

Thankfully, things have drastically improved with my adoptive family the more I have learned to trust God and his timing. Through developing my relationship with him, I’ve dealt with those feelings of anger and bitterness that often rose to the surface in my teen years. He has shown me where I’ve failed and fallen short, and he has shown me what it looks like to forgive and move forward.

I share my story not to elicit pity but to show how God can work in our lives. My life has felt like a fastball to the chest, but God has used it and my story in a way that I would have never imagined. One of the greatest lessons he’s taught me is that I am never abandoned.

It took me ten years to realize that I hadn’t fully grieved the death of my first parents. And then it took me a few more years to grieve the fact that I had lost my second family. But God wasn’t done with me. He showed me that I had a purpose and that I could be used to serve his kingdom. The reason I have hope is because of him.

What I’ve come to realize is that everyone has terrible life experiences we can’t fully understand. But it’s our response to these traumatic events that make or break us. Surrendering to God’s plan is a choice each of us must make.

Life can be a chaotic ride, and we often default to trying to put ourselves in control. But I’m living proof that when you put God first, he can take even our most painful past experiences and turn them into something beautiful.