Life is hard. We all know this. We all have our tough times, our hidden hurts. Sometimes, we can look at our pain and at someone else's and say "I could have it much worse" and we find comfort in that.
A lot of times, though, our pain is so great that we don't find solace in those comparisons. Our pain is very real and very close - it consumes us so easily. When our lives don't go the way we wanted them to - when someone hurts us - when we hurt ourselves...it's all too real to ignore, too present to push down.
Our pain is our own and no one else's. And it needs to be felt...needs to be processed...
And it needs to be used.
It MUST have a purpose.
And God has surprised me consistently with how He has used mine for His good.
I have had my fair share of pains. Some, I hold up next to someone else's and realize it's probably not so bad. Others, I hold close, knowing that they don't compare...knowing that because they are mine, because they are so personal, that they are deep and misunderstood and painfully secret.
But those secrets creep out sometimes. When a friend posts something on Facebook, when someone shares a prayer request, or even when I can tell something is off with a colleague...they come to the surface. My own pain reflecting in their eyes, screaming for me to lend an ear, to share an encouraging word, and pray for them.
I struggled for a long time with it...asking God to show me clearly how He wanted to use my life's unexpected journeys for Him. I had a million different scenarios in my head and I wanted Him to show me which one was right.
None of them look like what I'm confident He in fact had planned for me - what He's laid in my path in the past couple of years. None of those scenarios included boldly sending a message with the questions that needed to be asked, or re-connecting with long lost friends who were hurting and scared, or forging new friendships away from home, or even praying over a relative stranger in a corner in the church foyer.
None of it is glamarous. None of it is public. None of it is obvious. None of it is as I expected it to be.
Instead - All of it is brutally honest. All of it is real. All of it is useful and healing.
God has a plan for our pain...it fits in the grand scheme of His great plan...it reveals His glory, but only if we let Him use it. If we hand it over to Him, He'll show us the good...He'll open the doors...
He'll continue to allow us to show Love to others...especially when we least expect it...
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