Kasey Van Norman learns to look beyond her past and hardship in her new book, Named By God. She has also been learning to see God in the midst of physical hardship after she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
“You’re not just believing in God–that’s the easy part. You’re believing what God says about you and what he’s capable of doing in and through you.”
She understands that a lot of people who go through difficult circumstances, particularly with physical ailments, cancer or chronic conditions can have a hard time seeing God there. Sometimes he seems so silent in times of hardship.
We have to ask ourselves what our faith really is in those times, she shares.
Kasey realized that in the midst of her cancer treatment God was creating her to be more in the image of Christ. Now as she is in remission she has come to a sense of peaceful abiding, something she realized only happened after she got to the end of herself in the pain and struggle.
“When we cry out to him, he does not leave us void, he is in that shadow with us.”
She also dives into her personal story of hardship from being a child of divorce and being date raped in high school. The hurt and bitterness from these situations led to her teenage rebellion from God, developing and eating disorder, experimenting with cutting and being sexually promiscuous.
At age 18 at a summer camp Kasey had a mountain-top experience where God convicted her of her sin. She gave up those behaviors and came back refreshed. This didn’t mark the end of her bad choices though, as she explains in her full interview with Susie.
“People are more attracted to mess more than they are to pretty. And I’m messy and people are attracted to that authenticity.”
Key Scriptures: Hebrews 12:11-12, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Isaiah 43:18-19
