Restory: The Redemption in Your So What?

How might God be offering you a “restory” of your life? Mary DeMuth discovers new meaning for us all. 

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Restory: The Redemption in Your So What?

By Mary DeMuth

If we are Christ followers, the climax of our story has a before and it has an after. This is true whether we met Jesus as a child or in a slow process or in a radical way. But sharing the same So what? doesn’t mean our stories are all the same. Here’s the truth: Our unique beginnings, contexts, pain points, and inciting incidents weave together a redemptive thread that God intended just for us. And as we mine the depths of our narratives, we begin to uncover clues to our callings.

How can we figure out our So what? It’s not easy, particularly if we only look at our lives as we look inward. We need others to help us. When I was walking through a discernment process about my purpose and vocation—a process that, incidentally, end up in the restory messaging, the first thing I did was poll my friends and family. I asked,

“What adjective or verb do you think of when you think of me?”

“What is the one thing I do that helps other people?”

“What am I uniquely gifted to do?”

“How has my story helped you in your story?”

Their answers were life changing, and I don’t say that lightly. Words like freedom, joy, connection, empathy, and encouraging sprouted up. (It was a salve to my soul to read those!) When it came to how I help others, emancipation came up. I help people be set free from their pasts. Others said I am uniquely gifted to be authentic—to tell stories on myself so that others would feel less alone.

I would not have discovered this about myself through mere introspection. I needed my brothers and sisters to see me, to help me discern who I am and how I help others heal.

It may seem terrifying to you to ask such a thing. But you don’t have to start on a global scale. Just ask a friend one of these questions, and then listen to their response. Sometimes we can’t see the beauty of ourselves, though it is obvious to others.

Finding our So what? may involve a quest. We may have to look through our stories to find a redemptive thread, even when redemption seems impossible. When it comes to a particular character in my story—my biological father—this has not been an easy or straightforward task. For a long time, I lionized my father, imagining him with all sorts of heroic qualities. This is easy for a young child to do when they lose a parent. It was only later that I began to see how he had groomed me from an early age. Had he lived, I know I would have become the victim of something more far-reaching and depraved.

As I dug deeper into his life, I kept finding more frightening rabbit trails leading to newer levels of depravity. For a long time, I despised my father, though I fought to forgive him. It’s both hard and easy to pardon a dead perpetrator, I have found. Eventually, as I mentioned earlier, I simply had to land on not truly understanding him. I wasn’t meant to. No matter how many investigations I did, each layer of sin only smelled more like stench. Though I could admit that he was a human being in need of love and forgiveness, I also had to come to terms with the fact that I would never tie him up in a neat testimony package.

For a long time, I could not find a redemptive thread running through that train wreck of a story. How do you reconcile that your father was a sexual perpetrator, a narcissistic sociopath with psychopathic tendencies? How does that fit into a story of redemption?

It doesn’t.

At least, not on the surface. This restory has taken years to unearth.

You see, I am a writer, and he was a writer—a far better one than I’ll ever be.

I am an artist, and he was a photographer—a far better one than I’ll ever be.

His creativity flows through me—but God has redeemed it. God has taken what caused my father’s deepest forays into evil (pornography in both realms) and transformed them into prose and art for the Kingdom of God. I am deeply humbled by the discovery, the most powerful restory I’ve experienced. My vocation goes far deeper than a spiritual-gift inventory—it’s the coded part of my soul, the way God knit me in my mother’s womb, the way I process pain. As I look back on my life, I realize so much profound healing has happened through these gifts he’s given me.

Let that sink in. The gifts God has given you are the shape of your redemption. 

If the Lord had shown me all I would have faced in my healing journey at the outset, I would have run clear away. I certainly would not have predicted that in my quest for healing, I’d write dozens of books. Or paint hundreds of pictures. Or sing thousands of songs. Or speak to many, many people on and off stages. All these creative endeavors were God’s way of helping me heal.

What about you?

How has God gifted you?

What makes you stand out from others?

What is unique in your story that no one else has?

How have your trials informed your triumphs?

What has God uncaged you from?

How have you been set free?

How is your healing journey different from your friend’s or your family member’s?

There is no formula to discern these unique healing pathways; it’s more of an investigative—yet joyful—journey of discovery.

When I realized that God used some of my father’s gifts within me to bring me boatloads of healing, I had a greater appreciation for the story-weaving capabilities of the Lord. He can take what the enemy of our souls meant for our demise and utterly transform us for the better. How can that be? It, again, causes me to remember him as my first love, the One who can create beauty from chaos.

I cannot recount how many times I cried out to God, trying to make sense of my story. Sometimes he was silent. But even in that holy quiet, he was working.

When we meet Jesus in the climax of our stories, these possibilities begin—and they are shaped just like us. He doesn’t redeem us into someone else—he makes us the healed version of ourselves. We become more like ourselves every day on this powerful healing journey.

Taken from Restory Your Life by Mary Demuth. Copyright © 2026. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Mary DeMuth has written over fifty books, including The Most Overlooked Women of the Bible and 90-Day Bible Reading Challenge. Her most recent book is Restory Your Life: How Jesus Reframes Your Past, Rewrites Your Present, and Redefines Your Future. Through her podcast, Pray Every Day, and her speaking events around the globe, Mary seeks to help people heal from past trauma and live re-storied lives as followers of Jesus. Mary is married to Patrick and has three adult children. Connect with her at www.marydemuth.com