You’re Not Done Yet!

Kimberly Rae wasn’t sure what God was doing. She lived overseas and planned to give her life to missions, but sickness kept shutting her down. As the years passed, and doctor after doctor admitted they did not know what was wrong, Kimberly fought discouragement. Surely once she got a diagnosis, someone could fix the problem and she could get back to her life.

Finally, a specialist at Emory found the source of her fifty-plus symptoms: Addison’s Disease. Her rare disease, unfortunately, meant she would be steroid-dependent for the rest of her life, and any small sickness could become dangerous. She asked one doctor if she would be able to return to missions overseas, and he bluntly responded no, and he was surprised she hadn’t “kicked off already”!

How One Woman’s Diagnosis of Disease Led to a Global Ministry

She and her husband moved back to America and settled in North Carolina. Kimberly felt shelved. Useless. Done. Due to her fluctuating health, it felt like everything important in life was limited. She couldn’t commit to any ministries at church. She had to say no to activities she wanted to say yes to. Even holidays and special events became draining.

One thing she could still do was write. Kimberly had written for years for Christian magazines, but considered writing a book. After tossing around ideas, her mother asked, “If you could write about anything, what would you write about?” By the end of the day, she had begun her novel, Stolen Woman, which combined things she cared about most: human trafficking, missions, and women knowing their worth in Christ. The book became an Amazon bestseller, as did the two following books in the series.

Rae now reaches more people through her books and speaking on fighting human trafficking than she ever did during her years overseas. Some of those touched by her writing is now fighting human trafficking themselves. Her limitations were not God shelving her, but preparing the way for something better!

Making a difference in a different way 

“I used to want to be competent and make a huge impact and if I did those things, it would mean I mattered,” Kimberly says. “But having an incurable disease that shut me down showed me I was finding my worth in the wrong things. God wants me to give the message to women that they matter, not because of how busy they are, but because of who they are in Christ. I matter just as much to God on days like today…” (she says as she battles a chronic infection on the couch in her Hello Kitty PJs!) “…as I do when I’m training hundreds of people how to fight trafficking.”

Kimberly hopes her story will help women stop defining themselves by what or how much they do. “If we know our worth in God, we can stop needing to prove ourselves all the time,” Rae concludes. “And then we really can make a difference in the world, but for all the right reasons.”

Recently, God directly Kimberly and her family to Source of Light International, a ministry that sends evangelistic and discipleship lessons to forty locations all over the world. As they toured the facility, Kimberly felt like she was in a dream come true. “It’s a whole global ministry of writing!” Her husband will serve there at the headquarters in Madison, GA, but Kimberly will be able to invest when and how she can, mostly from home on her computer, “even in the middle of the night in my PJs!”

“In Psalms, David once said, ‘It is good that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes,’” Kimberly quotes. “I needed God to take my identity as a missionary away so I would learn to find my identity in Him alone. He did not want me to diluting his Gospel with my own need to prove myself. Now He’s letting me back into missions and I’m so grateful, but my perspective has changed. I no longer want to get to the end of my life and have people say, ‘Look at what she did for Jesus.’ I want to get to the end of my life and have people say, ‘Look what Jesus did for her.’ Or better yet, just, ‘Look at Jesus.’”

Find resources (including printable handouts) to fight human trafficking, order autographed books, or contact Kimberly at www.kimberlyrae.com.