From Pain To The Promise…
Psalm 119:49-50 (New International Version)
49 Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. 50 My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.
When I use to think about pain and any sort of discomfort for that matter I use to equate it to nothing good. I remember being in times throughout my life where pain came and it paralyzed me; it took my ability to feel anything but its stabbing and throbbing, its discomfort and misplacement. It made me feel in bondage and damaged. It never caused me to feel the pangs of its effect and caused me to look ahead to anything but sorrow and the possibility of more minutes, hours, days, and months of pain...It is funny what studying the Word of God will do for you. There is never a time that there is a promise without some pain involved. When Abraham was given the promise of Isaac, He first had to endure a season of waiting which caused pain and then a season of Ishmael which cause pain. Joseph’s dreams indicated and identified the promise of God coming to him, but he had to endure great pain to get to it and for it to come to fruition in his life. Hannah, wanted the promise of a child, but she had to endure the ridicule and pain of being barren for a time and watching another woman have what she desired.
I will never forget the pain of my husband leaving. At the time I felt I could die. In that moment it felt like time stopped and I relived that pain over and over and over and over again. In those first few months that followed I did not ever think I would recover or be able to live again. I remember when we tried to reconcile and a statement was made that crushed the very shred of hope that I had left, “if you act up again I will leave again.” I had no chance of ever being perfect or even knowing what “acting up” would be defined as and I realized in that moment that nothing had changed and that there was no desire for change and to come back together would only mean really losing the shreds of who I was and the life that could be in God or otherwise. The pain was overwhelming and it was like someone doing surgery with a rusty knife, in the same place of a previous surgery, without any anesthesia. I could see no hope for my future. But then God began to speak to me through His word and in my time of prayer and devotion. He began to send help from His sanctuary. He began to build me up and replace what was lost and broken in my life. He breathed into me the breathe of life that I had allowed to be sucked out of me. He began to reveal Himself to me in such a way that He began to show me what His plans, and hope was for my life…No it was not just miraculously unveiled. There were signs and indicators… Then one day in Bible study the Spirit of the Lord spoke so clearly and said why haven’t you signed the papers yet you are holding up your own blessings and the promises I have for you. You can image my surprise when two people within that same week said things to be that confirmed that word. One said “often times God has to remove people out of your life because He does not want them to be partakers of His blessings on your life.” And the other person said “you do not understand that a favor a woman carried is still over her spouse, until the marriage is dissolved”…Neither one of these individuals knew my dilemma or knew what God had imparted to me in Bible study. You see it was my process of pain that had taught me to listen to the heart of God for my life to reach my potential and promise in Him.
You see the worst pains in our lives can be the ones that point the way to our promise. They can be the very motivator that pushes us to know God in a way that He has wanted us to all along, but we were too engrossed in idolatry. We have taken our eyes off of God and allowed people to lead instead of Him. But when pain comes, oh there is something about that feeling that will drive us into the very presence of God. We know at that point if God doesn’t speak, or heal it just won’t be done. That is when we know that what we are inheriting, prospering in and thriving from is the very promise of God and nothing else! Don’t be fooled good can come out of pain, because God will give us beauty for our ashes and He will impart to us a future, a hope and promises that have His name on them!
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