By: Terry Allen
Big Mama used to say, “Baby, trouble don’t come to break you, it comes to show you what you made of.” I did not fully understand what she meant when I was younger. Back then, I thought hard times meant something was going wrong. Now I know hard times often mean something is being built.
That truth came back to me this week during our morning Bible call. The speaker reminded us of the promise in Deuteronomy that God will never leave us nor forsake us. He went to Isaiah and told us, “Do not fear.” Then he landed in Jeremiah 29:11, reminding us that God already has a future prepared for us, even while we are still standing in the middle of the storm.
While he was talking, I thought about that Whitney Houston song, I Didn’t Know My Own Strength. In that song she sings about thinking she was finished, thinking she could not go any further, only to realize she was stronger than she ever knew. That song carries the same lesson Big Mama tried to teach us years ago — you were not built to break.
Life will shake you.
People will disappoint you.
Leadership will confuse you.
And in today’s climate, truth itself feels like it is under attack.
We are living in a time where misinformation moves faster than facts, where loud voices try to replace honest ones, and where people sometimes choose comfort over truth. It can make you tired. It can make you question what you believe. It can even make you wonder if standing for what is right is worth the fight.
But this is where Big Mama’s words come back around.
You were not built to break.
Storms do not come to destroy you. They come to reveal your strength. Pressure does not come to end you. It comes to shape you. And standing on truth in a noisy world is not a weakness — it is proof that God is still working behind the scenes.
I see that same strength every week in the work of our publisher, Cheryl Smith, and the voice of Texas Metro News, which continues to tell our stories, print our truth, and hold space for our community when others will not. In times like these, that kind of commitment matters more than ever.
Big Mama would smile if she saw it.
Because she always said, “If you stand long enough, baby, you gonna find out you stronger than you thought.”
And that is the lesson for today —
You didn’t know your own strength.
But God did.
And you was not built to break.
