Happy Thoughtful Thursday.

Some sentences are too simple to ignore. Auntie Anne Beiler has one of them: life is hard, and God is good. She says she is not confused about that anymore. That line is why this conversation belongs in our Created to Create season. Because most of us are trying to build something — a home, a business, a calmer mind, a faithful family — while life is still being life. The question is not whether the hard parts will come. The question is whether those hard parts get to have the final word.

This week’s newest Inspirational Echo episode was recorded backstage at Life Surge with Anne Beiler, the founder of Auntie Anne’s pretzels. If you only know the warm pretzel in the mall, you only know the fragrance of the story. The full interview is where her wisdom lives. Please go listen. What you will hear is not a neat success talk. It is a woman who walked through unimaginable loss, deep wounding, shame, and years of believing God might be finished with her — and then watched God make a company, a marriage, and a ministry out of what felt ruined.

Thoughtful Thursday: Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Now Create Anyway.

Created to Create does not mean created to pretend. It means created to keep making what matters after the chapter you would never have chosen. Anne’s life makes that painfully and beautifully clear.

Reflection

Anne grew up in an Amish-Mennonite farming family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, shaped by faith, work, and community. Then life turned violent with grief. She lost her young daughter. Later, in the wreckage of that sorrow, she was wounded again through abuse in a place that should have been safe. For a long stretch she lived under pain, blame, and shame. She has said there were years she believed God was done with her — that she would be of no value to His Kingdom or His people.

That is not a small confession. Many of the people who write us, walk into our stores, and sit through Life Surge nights are carrying some version of the same lie: this disqualifies me. Anne’s story answers that lie without rushing past the wound. Healing did not come through hiding. It came through light. She often points to James 5:16: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” She talks about forgiveness — including the hard work of receiving forgiveness and learning to forgive herself because of the cross. “Life is hard, and God is good,” she says. “And I’m not confused about that anymore.”

Out of that broken ground, purpose was born. She and her husband started twisting pretzels at a farmer’s market. She has told the story of standing in a kitchen, exhausted and crying out to God, when she sensed Jesus smiling as she rolled pretzels. What she heard in her heart was that Auntie Anne’s had been created as a vehicle to give. Not merely a brand. A means of generosity. Honor God became part of the company’s purpose. The pretzel was never the point. The giving was.

That is Created to Create in its truest form. God can take a twisted story and still make something that feeds people — literally and spiritually.

Scripture has been telling that story all along. Joseph is thrown into a pit by his own brothers, sold, forgotten, and imprisoned. At the end he can say, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). The harm was real. The good God made from it was also real. Both belong in the same testimony.

Jesus told a parable about seed and soil in Matthew 13. Some seed falls on the path, some on rocks, some among thorns, and some on good soil. Hardness, shallowness, and crowding are part of the picture. The point is not that the Sower is careless. The point is that fruit still comes where the Word is received and kept. A hard season does not mean the seed was a waste. It may mean the soil is still being broken up.

He told another parable about a lost coin, a lost sheep, and a lost son in Luke 15. In each one, something valuable is missing, and someone goes after it. The Father in that story does not wait for the younger son to arrive polished. He runs. He restores. He throws a feast. If your story includes a far country — grief, failure, abuse, silence, years you cannot explain at a dinner table — the gospel is not embarrassed by you. The gospel is built for return.

Jesus also told of two builders in Matthew 7. One builds on rock, one on sand. The storm hits both houses. Faithfulness is not proven by whether rain comes. It is proven by the foundation. Anne built a company after the storm had already torn through her life. That is the opposite of waiting until conditions improve. That is creating anyway because God is still good.

Romans 8:28 does not say all things are good. It says God works in all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Psalm 34:18 says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Isaiah 61:3 promises beauty instead of ashes, oil of joy instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. 2 Corinthians 4:7 reminds us we have this treasure in jars of clay, so that the power is seen as God’s and not ours. 2 Corinthians 12:9 is the same music in another key: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

And then there is the cross. The hardest day in history is also the place God created salvation. John 1:5 says the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. If God can make resurrection out of Friday, He can make purpose out of the chapter you thought had ended you.

So what do we do with a story like Anne’s on a Thursday afternoon? We refuse two cheap responses. We do not romanticize suffering. And we do not let suffering become our only identity. We tell the truth: life is hard. We confess the better truth: God is good. Then we ask the Created to Create question: what good work is still in my hands?

Maybe it is forgiveness you have postponed.

Maybe it is a conversation you have been too ashamed to start.
Maybe it is a small business, a ministry, a meal, a note, a return to church, a pretzel stand of your own kind — some ordinary work offered to God as a vehicle to give.

Next time you are at the mall and catch the smell of those tasty pretzels, think back on Auntie Anne’s story. Let it be more than a snack. Let it be a reminder to create. God can still make something generous out of a life that has been through the fire.

For her full interview — the details, the tears, the wisdom, the hope — listen to this week’s Inspirational Echo episode with Auntie Anne Beiler on YouTube or Spotify. Follow and share it. Stories like hers are meant to travel.

And tomorrow, another story of hope and bravery reaches the big screen. Nick Vujicic’s cinema debut, No Limbs, No Limits: The Nick V Story, opens in theaters nationwide on September 25. If you want to support that work, get the No Limits custom engraved bundle and we will send you a voucher to see the movie, or purchase tickets and take your friends and family. South Florida friends: join us at Regal Cinemas in Boynton. Click the link in this email.

Life is hard.

God is good.

Now create anyway.

Christian Faith Points

• Life can be brutally hard and God can still be unfailingly good.

• Pain does not cancel purpose.

• Confession and forgiveness are part of healing.

• God works in all things, not only in the easy things.

• The parables keep telling us that lost things can be found and storms still test the foundation.

• What we create can become a vehicle to give.

• The cross remains the deepest proof that God creates life out of the worst day.

Your Thoughtful Thursday Story

Sit with these questions:

• Where have I believed the hard chapter disqualified me?

• What would it look like to tell the truth — life is hard, and God is good — without rushing either half?

• What is one thing I can still create as an act of trust?

Prayer or Reflection

Father, thank You that You are close to the brokenhearted. Thank You for Anne’s life, for every person who thought You were finished with them, and for every ordinary work You turn into a vehicle to give. Teach us to hold both truths: life is hard, and You are good. Then help us create anyway.

 Amen.

Call to Action

Listen to Auntie Anne on the Inspirational Echo.

Tomorrow, see No Limbs, No Limits in theaters nationwide.

Then go make what matters with the life you actually have.

Created to Create.