L I F E C H A N G I N G P A I N

There are some hurts you will experience in life that are so painful that you can’t go back to doing life as usual. This can be a good or a bad thing. I’ve experienced it myself both ways. I’ve had pain to detour me from a positive path and I’ve had pain that was so hurtful that it put me on the right path.

Pain is inevitable but how you choose to handle it is completely up to you. You can either smile, cry and grow through it or become bitter and never see the potential of it.

Pain is an opportunity to overcome. When you take advantage of it you’ll find strengths you never knew you had. One of the best ways to seize this opportunity is through our faith. God can give us faith to move mountains and lift the heavy burdens.

Pain doesn’t come alone. It usually comes with some baggage that I’d like to address.

1. We mostly experience pain when we’ve been DISAPPOINTED by someone or something. In life we are going to experience disappointment but we have to understand that disappointment is not the end. It may be an end of something but it’s certainly not the end of life. As long as you are alive you have an opportunity to change your disappointments into reappointments. Get a new whatever it is you loss, but get it in God’s timing. For every disappointment there is a reappointment. Don’t get stuck in what you loss when there is so much more to gain. Learn to appreciate where God has you right now in life. Embrace the new, even if this new place God has you in means you have to wait. Wait on the Lord. Enjoy where you are.

2. GRIEF is a tough one, because it’s holding on to something that is gone. We grieve a lot of things in life: death of love ones, dream jobs, foreclosure homes and broken relationships. It’s because we can’t see life without it. We assume our lives can’t get better than what we loss. This isn’t the truth, unless you are unaware of God’s promises. Jeremiah 29:11, in the KJ V Bible, (to Jeremiah the prophet) God says “For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” If God had thoughts of a good future for Jeremiah, I believe He has a good one for you and I as well. I know it feels like what you loss can’t get better, but God would not take away something that he can’t replace with better. His thoughts towards you aren’t evil but good. If He allowed someone or something to leave your life than He is bringing something better. Why hold on to dead things when there’s life ahead. We can choose to spend our entire lives grieving something that’s been gone or we can let it go. Letting go is a choice. Why hold on to someone or something that has already moved on? We do this a lot in relationships. Just because the person calls you every now and then you believe something is still there. Deep in your heart you know it’s not there but you continue to allow yourself to go through this grief. Healing comes when you let go. What’s meant will return but it’ll be full of life when it does. Relationships die but in order to embrace a new one you must let go of the old one. Home foreclosure happens but it doesn’t have to be your last home. We all are passing through this life but in eternity we shall live again. Job loss is tough but God has a greater purpose. Whatever it is you loss trust and know that God is going to make it okay. It’s time to start praying and thanking God for what’s ahead.

3. Pain brings FEAR of experiencing pain again. “You burned me once, maybe twice, but it’s never going to happen again.” This is pretty much how we feel after we’ve been hurt too many times, either by the same person or the same kind, species or gender. We refuse to be hurt again. Actually, we are terrified by the idea of someone breaking our hearts again. We will go as far as thinking ahead of them to prevent them from hurting us again. This is all fear. Fear of rejection, being cheated on, and being abused. It’s why we put up walls, falsely accuse others, and put on boxing gloves when no one is fighting us. When really we are still in pain. We are in remembrance of the pain we’ve experienced by others. We have not healed. How do you know when you’re healed from an invisible womb? You know when a physical wound is healed. It stops bleeding. The tenderness is gone. You can now move this area around as you have before. Well, it’s the same way with an invisible wound. The bleeding, tenderness and inability to move forward is fear. A person who is no longer bleeding is not afraid to do something again that has hurt them. In fact, we forget how painful something was once we are healed. For example: We still bake after burning our hands so many times. A person who is no longer tender won’t become sensitive every time something or someone resembles their past. That’s because it’s no longer a soft spot. Perhaps your current situation does resemble your past, a healed person is not going to be sensitive to this behavior because they are free. They don’t mind moving forward. Movement and fear can coexist for a time but if you continue to move the fear will peel away. A healed person will keep moving forward with good expectations and not fearful ones. Thoughts may come but you don’t have to follow those thoughts. Just because you feel fear, doesn’t mean you should follow fear. In the beginning phases of recovery you are going to feel afraid, but as you move more and more forward you will become more and more brave.

4. Pain brings BITTERNESS, but when purpose comes into your life all bitterness will leave your life. Your pain was for a purpose. Don’t be bitter. Bitterness wants to steal your future but remember God came to give us life.

5. Pain can make you feel HOPELESS, and you end up losing faith in God, love and in people. You assume everything in life is against you but “As a man thinks in his heart, So is he.” Don’t look at what you’ve been through as your present or future. It’s your Past. Your Future is completely up to you. There is always a reason to hope. Hope as long as you are living. It’s possible to see all your dreams come true.

Whether pain has created for you Disappointment, Grief, Fear, Bitterness or Hopelessness, you have what it takes to turn your pain into purpose.