22/08/2025
Voice in the Crowd
Safe Haven: A Story of Faith and Hope
Clara sat at her kitchen table, surrounded by bills, messages filled with threats, and accusations that cut deeper than any knife. Scammer, fraud, liar, thief. The words haunted her day and night, echoing from people who once called her a friend, a colleague, and even family.
She had tried everything—working around the clock, skipping sleep, selling whatever she could. But it was never enough. The debts loomed over her like a storm that refused to pass. She felt trapped, drowning in a sea of numbers, shame, and condemnation.
Her phone vibrated again. Another message. Another demand. Another cruel word.
Her hands shook as she reached for the bottle of pills on the table. The pain, the exhaustion, the never-ending cycle—was there any other way out?
Tears blurred her vision as she whispered, “God if You’re real, where are You? Do You even see me?”
Just then, her Bible, which had sat untouched on the shelf for months, caught her eye. Something in her heart nudged her forward. With trembling hands, she picked it up and flipped through the pages.
Her eyes landed on Psalm 32:
“You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.”
A sob broke from her chest. A hiding place. A safe haven in the middle of the storm. Not escape, but refuge. Protection. God saw her. He knew her pain. And He had not abandoned her.
That night, she didn’t take the pills. Instead, she cried out to God—honestly, desperately. She didn’t ask for a miracle to erase the debt overnight. She asked for strength. For wisdom. For peace.
The next morning, something shifted. Her situation hadn’t changed, but her heart had. She no longer cared about the cruel words people threw at her. They didn’t know how hard she was fighting. They didn’t see her working 24/7, sacrificing everything to make things right. But God saw. And that was enough.
Clara took things one step at a time. She found a financial counselor who helped her structure her payments. She learned to set boundaries, to tune out the voices of condemnation. And slowly, very slowly, she saw progress.
She was still in debt, but she was no longer drowning.
She was still exhausted, but she was no longer hopeless.
She was still in the storm, but now—she had found her safe haven.
Because through it all, God never left her side.
-Jhai Zapanta
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