Hadassah T.

June 8, 2024 by Gabriela YarelizProfiles, Uncategorized

Today Hadassah speaks to us about her book Draw Near, how God found her, and how she navigated grief.

Tell us a bit about how you grew up and your childhood: In grew up in Bulgaria, which was a communist country at that time. Religion was forbidden, people were going secretly to church. This was a subject that was not discussed openly. My parents were nonbelievers. I had a tough childhood because my father had problems with alcohol and violence. I didn’t feel safe and loved except with my grandparents. The parents of my mum lived in a village nearby and there, when I was in their care, I truly blossomed. My other grandma, however, was a secret believer. She had a New Testament at her home and I loved reading it, especially the last chapters of the last book (the Revelation). I didn’t understand what I was reading, but I felt a powerful longing in my heart that moved me to tears.

Inspiring biblical passage of the moment: “See, my servant will act wisely and prosper, he will be raised and lifted, and highly exalted.” (Isaiah 52:13, NIV)

Spiritual growth focus at the moment: My spiritual focus at the moment is thriving and grief-related. I am focused of the healing of the healing of my heart from the unexpected and tragic loss of my husband in 2020. Although the grief is always present, I can experience genuine joy more often. I have more peace, and most importantly, I dream and plan again about the future. This is something I couldn’t do before.

“Although the grief is always present, I can experience genuine joy more often.”

Profession/Mission: I have a master in international relations; I speak 4 languages, and I am a certified marketing and communication manager. I have many years of experience working in marketing, project management as a translator.

I am also an award-winning author, blogger at onthewaybg.com, poet, speaker, and contributor to several faith-based platforms like Proverbs 31 Compel blog and a dozen award-winning devotionals and poetry anthologies. My writing has been featured on (In)Courage, The Upper Room, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Her View From Home, Living by Design Ministries, Thoughts About God, Today’s Christian Living, and other popular sites. I am the author of Draw Near: How Painful Experiences Become the Birthplace of Blessings.

My mission as a writer and speaker is to motivate and encourage people to stay faithful to God and keep the faith in the dark valleys of suffering and pain.

If you wrote a memoir, what would the title be? I actually wrote a memoir, although it is still not published. The title is: SATISFIED: A Story of Turning Barrenness into Fruitfulness and Purpose. It is about a woman who longs to be a mother, only to find out her marriage and body betraying her. With God, she finds herself on a journey to fruitfulness and satisfaction beyond everything she imagines. It is a story of a woman’s journey of transformation and change that ultimately leads to birth–the birth of God’s purposes and plan in her life.

When did you first encounter God and how did you encounter Him? In my teenage years, I didn’t see any meaning and purpose, and it was too painful and crushing to live in a dysfunctional family. Living in an atmosphere of fear because of the abusive behavior of my father, I sank deeper into a pit of depression, self-doubt, and suicidal thoughts. By this time, I had already discovered the huge discrepancy between what I wanted to be and what I was, and my absolute inability to change my condition. I was terrified and ashamed of certain thoughts and actions that I was not able to change. I wanted to be good, but I couldn’t. I wanted to love, but I couldn’t. A hurricane of resentment, offense, hatred, and anger raged within me, and I could not control it. In utter desperation, I cried out to the universe and placed an ultimatum. “God, if you exist, I challenge you to show yourself to me. Otherwise, there is no reason for me to live anymore.” I was praying this for months.

God found me. In a series of coincidences and divine encounters and conversations with people who knew Jesus, and were my schoolmates in the Language Gymnasium I was attending, I heard the Gospel for the first time and experienced a dramatic encounter with God and His love. They brought me to an evangelical church, where I heard the Gospel and responded by faith, accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

“God found me.”

How would you describe Jesus? Jesus is the center of my life. He is my Lord, my best friend, my grief-expert and comforter, counselor, guide, teacher, savior, my strength, my hope, and much more. He is tender, gracious, never condemning, always there when I fail and fall, drawing me faithfully to Him. Jesus is my restorer and healer.

How has your relationship with Him changed you? For a first time after I gave my life to Jesus, I experienced overwhelming joy and hope. Everything had meaning.

The truth I have a heavenly Father who loves me unconditionally and who will never abuse me and control me, but instead support and encourage me till the end, was a fountain of life to me. It pulled me back from the edge of the pit I was about to throw myself into and gave me meaning and a reason to live. My circumstances didn`t change (at least not immediately) but I was no longer afraid or depressive.

My relationship with Jesus has changed me profoundly as a person. It brought healing to my heart and moved me from self-centeredness, pride, and controlling desires into God-centeredness, acceptance, humility, peace, and satisfaction.

What has been the darkest time in your life, and how did you see God in it? I had several major dark periods in my life. The last and most severe was the unexpected loss of my husband – the biggest tragedy and heaviest blow. My worst fear materialized. He died only at 55 and was left at 44 a widow, without a husband and without children in a foreign country.

However, the Lord carried me and gave me all possible support and help I needed, and most of all, the strength to keep living minute by minute and day by day.

I also felt nudged to move back to Bulgaria after 15 years living in Austria. In Bulgaria, I had a bigger support network comprising my extended family, friends, and most of all, I needed to change the environment. The Lord spoke to me a lot with the story of Ruth and Naomi: both childless widows who came back from the land of Moab to the land of Judah after the tragedies that had befallen them.

What has helped you grow spiritually in this season? Several things helped me during this season:

Keeping the communication with the Lord, and drawing near to Him despite the pain and in the pain.
Learning to lament and keeping my emotional integrity.
Trusting God’s wisdom, love, and plan.
Listening to His voice and choosing to put my trust in His messages and words for me.
Journaling.
Practicing gratitude.

Just read/currently reading (and what has it taught you?): I love reading several books simultaneously. My just read/current reads are:

Giving up Grace by Robin Gerblick. This book captivated me! Robin shares her powerful story of redemption, healing and transformation in a vulnerable and touching way. For everyone who struggles with regrets, shame and guilt, this book is a game-changer.
Lean into Grace by Stacey Pardoe. If you struggle in your life as a believer in Christ, this inspiring book is for you. It is a tender and beautiful invitation to surrender our self-efforts and learn how to receive God’s grace. Heart-warming and hope-giving, Lean Into Grace is a must-read for all who struggle to experience God’s victory, freedom and healing in their lives.
She Believed He Could So She Did by Becky Beresford. I enjoyed this transformational book very much. It brings real empowerment by identifying the cultural lies we used to believe and inviting us to replace them with biblical, Christ-centered truth. Becky comes alongside the reader like a trusted friend who understands the reader’s struggles and problems and points us back to Christ as the ultimate answer and solution.

Top three essentials: a bottle of water, my journal and my Bible.

How did God speak to you recently? Since my word for this year 2024 is “thrive” God speaks to me a lot on this topic. He is showing me that happiness or feelings of happiness are not the basis if I am thriving or not. I can be thriving amidst feelings of sorrow, sadness, anxiety, doubts, loneliness. Why? Because the secret is to have a thriving relationship with God, a constant and intimate connection with Him.

Thriving means to grow, prosper, succeed, flourish, get ahead, bear fruit, arrive, progress, rise, abound, boom, healthy, on top, going strong, blossom. Amazing!

I am learning to live out the truth that I can thrive in all seasons of my life. No painful experience can hinder me from having a thriving relationship with the Lord and to thrive in life.

I love the promise in Psalm 92:12-15: The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, “The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”

Hobby: reading, traveling, spending time with friends.

Top three practical tips for staying spiritually strong:

Spending regularly time with God in prayer, reading the Word, Bible study, worship. A daily habit to practice these spiritual disciplines is essential for our spiritual growth.
Involving God in everything and abiding in Him, staying conscious of Him and unburdening our hearts in His presence.
Relinquishing control and trusting the Lord with the process and the outcomes.

Favorite person in scripture? I relate to different biblical heroes in different situations and struggles. But I guess my “best friends” are Jeremiah and Job. Both experienced intense suffering but also disappointment with God, and disillusionment when God didn’t meet their expectations. Both went through the dark night of the soul but also both got a deeper revelation of God and were deeply transformed. And both were faithful in their suffering.

Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet. He struggled with depression, disillusionment and he was disappointed in his prophetic ministry, which was rejected by the people. What I love: he stayed faithful till the end and also he wrote one of the most inspiring and hope provoking prophecies and promises in Jeremiah chapters 30-33, picturing God as God of restoration and redemption.

Job is the epitome of a suffering person, who asked the WHY questions without getting answers. I love his stubbornness to cling to his faith doesn’t matter what. At some point, he even preferred to die, but not to lose his faith in a good and just God. I also love the lesson in humility God gave him and how Job reacted. And I love the way God redeemed Job’s pain, giving him DOUBLE for his TROUBLE. But more importantly, giving him a crown of righteousness and an eternal memory.

What do you want people to learn about God when they look at you? When people look at me, I want them to see more of Jesus and less of me. I want to become like a transparent veil through which they can catch a glimpse of our living God. I hope that people see God’s resurrection and restoration power, His sustaining grace and His faithfulness in me.

How do you engage with your community? I engage with my community in multiple ways: online and in person. I engage with them through my website, newsletter, social media channels, YouTube channel, through my books.

Also, I love the face-to-face and one-to-one contact. I especially love the special God-moments, these seemingly accidental meetings, that turn into great opportunities to minister to a specific need in the best timing.

Favorite holiday? Easter is my favorite because the resurrection of our Lord is the foundation of our faith.

A goal you have? My goal is to have a thriving relationship with the Lord, to walk in obedience wherever He leads me, and to thrive in all areas of my life.

A more practical goal is to promote my new book Draw Near, so it can reach the right people and help them.

A special tradition you and your family engage in or keep: We love celebrating Christmas and Easter, following all typical Bulgarian traditions. For example, for Christmas Eve we bake a special unleavened bread and put a coin into it, and sometimes put sheets of paper with specific blessings. Whoever gets the piece of with the coin, would have a lot of happiness and luck in the coming year.

Question you will ask when you get to heaven? When I see God as He is in His full glory, I don’t think I will have any questions to ask.

Thing you want to raise awareness about: Grief and healthy ways to express and process our grief. I want to say to all grieving hearts: you have permission to grieve. It is ok to feel everything you feel, and it is ok to lament and talk about it. We need to learn how to deal with our losses and how to grieve.

“We need to learn how to deal with our losses and how to grieve.”

What does your morning routine consist of? Preparing coffee and breakfast, reading through my emails and social media notifications, noting down tasks and prayer needs, based on this. Then reading several portions of Scripture, journaling and praying through them. I sometimes read also excerpts from a book if I have more time. Finally, I end with prayer.

What is on your nightstand? A bottle of water, my Bible, and 2-3 books.

Define Christianity in a sentence: An eternal relationship with the living God through the faith in the atoning sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ.