Grow through your pain
No one escapes pain. Pain is universal. Very often in life, we can go through a storm, a devastation, a loss, and feel like we are all alone, like God, the world, and the universe is against us and no one knows how we feel. However, every faith teaches that pain is universal. Even Jesus went through pain. No one is exempt. It is during a painful time; a loss of a spouse, loss of a child, a job, health, business, career, finances, whatever your pain may be, that we can begin to become bitter, if we take a humanistic look at our pain. If we are not mindful, our perspective may say “why me?” However, the Bible is a reminder that God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts and everything is not about us. There is something good in what you’ve been through. You’ve just got to give God time to show it to you. Some things, including our pain, is bigger than us. That means, how we are looking at something that has happened to us, may not be God’s perspective on what happened through us, because of us, and for us. There are always two perspectives: our view versus heaven’s view. The greatest examples of this are Jesus, and even globally celebrated icons like Former South African President, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and more. They endured for the greater good. Personal pain always has a purposeful agenda when we put in in God’s Hands. That’s really where the battle is. What will you do with your pain? Will you keep it in your hands and allow it to torment you or put it in God’s Hands and allow it to develop you? The choice is yours. You can’t always control what happens to you. But, you can control what you do with what happens to you. Lost your job? Think about how you can start your own business. Went through a painful divorce? Think about how you can heal, remarry, and help others. Life is not over for you. There’s more joy ahead, if you commit to moving forward. In college, I interned for an international organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). It was launched by a mom who lost her child to death when he was killed by a drunk driver. Candy, the founder of MADD is an example of how God can use your pain to bless His purpose on earth. Her pain became a seed that God used to produce a harvest to bless other people. God wants to do the same for you. However, you won’t see that if you continue to look at your pain through a selfish lens. All of us must learn how to change our perspective and stop taking everything so personally. It’s a discipline, but when we condition ourselves to trust God, despite the pain, we can have confidence in knowing all things happen for us, not just to us. To remain at peace as we grow through pain in our lives, it is imperative we remember, it’s not personal, it’s purposeful. Good things can come from what we’ve been through. I don’t know everything you may be going through right now. But, I do know, as long as you have breath in your body, there’s still time to come back from whatever it is that was trying to shut you down. Grieve your pain. That’s OK. Search your wounds for God’s wisdom. But, after you grieve, get up. The purpose for your pain is ahead. God has so much more in store for you. To learn more about the empowerment ministry of Tera Carissa Hodges, please visit www.teracarissa.com