Please take away my pain and despair of yesterday and any unpleasant memories and replace them with Your glorious promise of new hope. Show me a fresh HS-inspired way of relating to negative things that have happened. I ask You for the mind of Christ so I can discern Your voice from the voice of my past. I pray that former rejection and deep hurts will not color what I see and hear now.
Help me to see all the choices I have ahead of me that can alter the direction of my life. I ask You to empower me to let go of the painful events and heartaches that would keep me bound. Thank You for Your forgiveness that You have offered to me at such a great price. Pour it into my heart so I can relinquish bitterness hurts and disappointments that have no place in my life. Please set me free to forgive those who have sinned against me and caused me pain and also myself. Open my heart to receive Your complete forgiveness and amazing grace. You have promised to bind up my wounds Psa 147:3 and restore my soul Psa 23:3 .
Help me to relinquish my past surrender to You my present and move to the future You have prepared for me. I ask You to come into my heart and make me who You would have me to be so that I might do Your will here on earth. I thank You Lord for all that’s happened in my past and for all I have become through those experiences. I pray You will begin to gloriously renew my present.”
― Sue Augustine, When Your Past Is Hurting Your Present
A year ago today I was alone in my house fasting and praying for the demons to leave in Jesus name. Several of them vanished, but a few stayed, the big ones. The demons doing the most damage to my life stayed behind to try and win back their prize...or whatever I was to them. This year is a little different. Last year there were a lot of questions about the past...Why?...being the biggest one. This year, it's still "Why?", but to different questions and God is sharing a few answers.
I was born a fighter and to be honest, I like to fight. I believe God has placed that in me to do spiritual warfare. There is nothing like taking down the enemy. There is nothing like having two thirds of the angels on the same side as me along with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Especially for a kid who felt everyone was against her, having such a team is amazing.
The fighter in me can also cause problems. I wrestle with God often. Like a two year old play fighting with a parent, He gently takes me to the ground with one hand while revealing the truth (often times in simple picture form) with the other. I'm no match for Him and I thank Him for that, but it doesn't stop me from trying.
A few weeks ago I was wrestling with God over one thing. I have a friend who is very important to me, a big sister in Christ. She had fallen and has severe damage to her shoulder. This is a big issue as far as the pain she is in, the finances needed for surgery, and my relationship with God. I see this woman drop everything to run out and pray the the pain away for others. I see her follow His will for her without question. Why won't He heal one stinking little messed up shoulder in this world of ugliness and pain? Why not heal her so it is easier for her to move about doing what He has asked her to do? This makes no sense in my little world. Yep. I was angry at Him. We had many late night chats about it and of course I was doing most of the chatting. He was actually pretty quiet about it, except for the same statement, "She will be healed". But when? Why not now? If this is how you treat people who follow you without question then do I really want to play this game?
I became bogged down with people's pain. I wanted to crawl back under my bed and stay there. Dust bunnies are good friends who cause no feelings in my heart. I had decided to trade them in for real people with real hurts. What was I thinking? I did as He asked and told my story and in the weeks to follow I saw amazing things happen but eventually I realized, people were in pain from hearing my story. What had I done?
Slowly in a way that only God can orchestrate, the scales began to fall. Just a few short weeks ago I saw all the ugliness, friendships end, people suffering with disease, families torn apart, babies, jobs and loved ones lost. This world sucks. But I have new eyes and the choice to use them. I didn't cause people's pain, God exposed it and brought the truth to light through me.
God uses the broken. My friend with the broken up shoulder is usually the one leading in prayer and praising God for all that He is doing. She has a smile that changes the atmosphere in a room and a love for God (even when in pain) that is contagious. I have seen her in tears many times, but it's usually happy tears for what God is doing and where He is leading. He uses her to...mess...people...up! Who she is in Him, has affected how I see.
I have a friend who lost a baby and is waiting for her body to realize it. WHAT? God seriously? What could possibly come from this that would be worth the pain this wonderful person is faced with? This one doesn't make sense. But then I saw that same "Light" in her eyes as she reached out to hug me. She reached out to hug me. I don't know what His plan is, but I know that one day she and her family will be healed. And as God just whispered to me, "There will be Hope in her womb". He is amazing.
When we focus on the pain, the broken relationships, and the disappointments, we are focusing on the enemy. We are giving the enemy glory every time we allow a school shooting, sickness and loss to consume us. We are to give God the glory by placing it in His hands and praising Him, worshipping and thanking Him while He turns it around. There is no such thing as failure in God's plan. There can't be. Sometimes we are blessed with seeing the healing, but other times it's a process for a reason we may not understand...sometimes our pain is not about us, but for someone else's healing.
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”― C.S. Lewis
When we focus on the pain, the broken relationships, and the disappointments, we are focusing on the enemy. We are giving the enemy glory every time we allow a school shooting, sickness and loss to consume us. We are to give God the glory by placing it in His hands and praising Him, worshipping and thanking Him while He turns it around. There is no such thing as failure in God's plan. There can't be. Sometimes we are blessed with seeing the healing, but other times it's a process for a reason we may not understand...sometimes our pain is not about us, but for someone else's healing.
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”― C.S. Lewis
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