Well, as much as a person tries to stay positive, there are going to be days or weeks when you find yourself bearing pain. It may be physical, emotional or spiritual pain. It is all pain none the less.
Things change, people change, I change, circumstances change. Pain results. Someone asked me to preach a sermon some time about how to live with chronic pain. Although I have been in pain for a month now, since this surgery, this pain will leave eventually. Relational pain also tends to come and go. We find ways to resolve the hurt and loss. I guess I don't really know anything about chronic, ongoing, forever pain, but any pain that we have feels pretty bad at the time.
During times of hurt and pain, I remember two of my favorite scriptures of hope.
Psalm 27: 13 I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
Psalm 30:2 O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. 3 O LORD, you brought me up from the grave [b]; you spared me from going down into the pit. 4 Sing to the LORD, you saints of his; praise his holy name. 5 For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
If you are hurting today, I pray that these scriptures bring you hope. We are Christians, we have a place to go. When I think about the goodness of God, I am swallowed up in his amazingness. My problems and my pain diminish. In his presence I think of him, not of me, and I am healed.
It is still a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.
1 comment:
After missing sunday after sunday for probably 6-8 weeks and not reading Jeff's blog I only found out about his illness a week ago or so. Its very easy to fall into a back slide missing church..and the times its happened to me or I should say I"ve allowed it to happen to me I fall into a mudpit...some of you know what I mean...I missed Woods Chapel terribly and each sunday said this will be the one I get back on track. It took a promised appointment on a sunday to get that to happen and I finally got back into a pew and heard my brother Jeff preach sunday for the first time since he's been back I believe...I felt like I'd come home from a long absence and have caught up on the blog which I enjoy so much. I only wish I"d been reading it to know what Jeff was going through. The pain of missing church of hearing Jeff or Clay of Kris and the praise band and just seeing my friends is not the kind of pain that Jeff went through and is not the kind of pain those with chronic suffering have God Bless them....but it is a type of mental pain that is avoidable....What thought could I have heard that I didn't...what person that I may have said hello to or listened to , that I didn't.
What Prayer told may have changed me. Being in Church hearing whomever is preaching is so important and I beat myself up about not being there. Pain is often self inflicted...like mine.
Almost all the times I've suffered in my life it was because of bad choices I made...only to be given the grace of God to overcome the mistakes and erase the pain. So many people to learn from, So many role models. Why on earth would I not be at all the services much less just one. Hearing of Steve's sons loss broke my heart.
Knowing he is in God's care helps heal it. This makes me think though...what if the one day you or me or someone is not there..is the day that someone needed to hear a word of encouragement?
I've rambled too long . Jeff Glad your feeling better I'm sorry I was not there for you.
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