She was born in mid-September at the Med in downtown Memphis. It was fast. She looked perfect. But hidden just beneath the surface was a tiny heart that was, oh, so broken!

Olivia Ann.

She has suffered more pain than most would ever endure in a lifetime. But like Jesus, her pain was not in vain. She had a very complicated heart defect. It required many surgeries that held no guarantees. By the time she was two years old, her tiny, fragile heart could no longer keep pace with her growing body, and she was placed on the heart transplant list.

Like Olivia’s heart, broken and underdeveloped, my spiritual heart was in the same condition. It wasn’t long after she entered the world that I began to understand some of the characteristics of God that my pain had kept me from seeing.

You see, I was broken from my childhood—scarred from abuse and living in a constant state of torment. I carried with me the pain that I had suffered and the choices I had made based on that abuse. Being witness to Olivia’s life and watching God faithfully restore her with a heart transplant gave me insight into why suffering is a beautiful part of life.

Jesus’s suffering on the cross was tremendous, bloody, the worst. Yet the beauty found just outside that pain is awesome, cleansing, the best. It’s life wrapped up in the highest of glory.

Olivia’s surgeries were terrifying, gruesome, the worst. But worth all the agony. She’s alive because of them. Her pain was my calling from God. His outpouring to reach me. I believe it was His attempt to restore my heart as well.

It’s been six years since Olivia received her new heart. After years of walking hand in hand with Christ through the pain of my childhood, I have discovered the deep connection between tremendous, life-changing pain, the daily pain of dying to yourself, and the gospel. Paul says it best in Romans 8:17: since we are “co-heirs with Christ,” we can experience his sufferings and share in the glory of that suffering!

I want to be transformed through the pains of life. That transformation brings purpose to the pain. As Philippians 3:10 says: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participate in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death….”

Sarah Apa