PASTOR’S CORNER: Don’t waste your pain

Tom Felten wrote in a devotional, “She looked into my eyes and said, ‘Don’t waste your pain.’ My mind immediately returned to the time years prior when I’d led the memorial service for her young adult son, whose life was taken in a car accident. She knew what she was talking about. She knew pain. But she also knew how God could use it to honor him and help others. As I heard her words, they comforted and encouraged me as I faced a serious cancer diagnosis. She was reminding me that God heard my cries and lament, and that he was with me in my pain and might use it to help others in a new way.”

Community, no one can bless you like somebody who has been where you are and can identify with something that you are going through. They become someone who comes alongside you when you have to have surgery and they have had the same surgery. If you are taking chemo for cancer, there are people who have already walked that road and taken chemo. If you are dealing with a problem marriage or divorce, no one can comfort you like somebody who has already been through divorce and survived. Somebody who has struggled with alcohol, drug addiction can speak to someone struggling with alcohol and drug addiction.

Sometimes when we are feeling pain and alone, we need somebody to come alongside us who has experienced that pain and loneliness. Community, can’t anybody bless you like somebody who has been where you are and who can identify with something that you are going through.

We ought to look around and ask God to show us somebody whom we can share our pain with so that our pain is not wasted. I know when I am going through something, I look for somebody who has walked in those shoes, somebody to help me through. PAIN should never have to walk alone, not when we belong to the body of Christ and the local church.

The Israelites in over 400 years of bondage must have felt like we do sometimes, that they were alone in their pain. They had 400 years of suffering and pain along with hardship and mistreatment as a nation under taskmasters. Despite their prayers to God year after year after year, it was years of pain. But God assured them he had a plan to rescue them and that “the cry” of their hearts was heard. He would ultimately use their pain to grow their faith, defeat their enemies, and bring them honor.

Remember, community, if we don’t use our pain, then what we went through will be in vain. Our struggles, our pain, are not just given for us, or just something that we went through with no purpose. It is a method through which God can work to strengthen the feeble hands of somebody else who is going through and maybe on the verge of giving up.

Christians are blessed the most through other Christians. They are helped more by other Christians. They are lifted up and encouraged the most by other Christians when we don’t waste our pain but instead USE our pain. The pain of divorce, betrayal, hurt, being falsely accused and being cheated on, is not just meant for us ourselves. When we come through it we are to look around us and abroad and we will see somebody that needs to hear from us. Praying for them is good, but sometimes we are the prayer request being answered. God wants to use our pain to help others. When the folk around us know about the pain that we go through, when we speak a word to them, it registers, it resonates with them.

Community, people are waiting on us. They need to hear our story and our testimony. God didn’t allow pain in our lives for no reason. A young lady is struggling with the loss of a miscarriage. They are on the brink of depression, and God wants us not to let our pain be in vain. If we don’t share it, it’s in vain. Has anybody had a stroke, a heart attack or has been on dialysis or battling cancer? Have you had children that just won’t listen and caused you pain, the pain of foreclosure, the pain of a loved one living with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, the pain of a cheating husband or wife or someone that you are engaged to? Folks need to know that God is with them in their pain, and he will put someone in our path. We need to pray and ask God to show us how we can use our pain to help others.

And when we are called to pain, know that what he has given us is a pain ministry and nobody can do your pain ministry like you can. After being in the pain of slavery, God told Moses “I have surely seen the affliction (pain) of my people … and I am come down to deliver them” (Exodus 3:7,8). God was right there in the middle of their pain with them. And he’s in the middle of our pain with us.

We know some Christians who are struggling with pain this morning; the pain of divorce, pain of domestic abuse, church hurt, the pain of family hurt, stress, child custody battles and mental struggle with the devil. Tell them how the Lord CARRIED you through.

Don’t WASTE your pain. Let God take it and help somebody else.