Pain, Process, Promise
Serving God is painful. I know, we shy away from saying stuff like that, people don’t like to hear it but guess what! Jesus said it Himself so really, I’m just repeating what He said. It is painful but not always in the way that we think. I can just hear you thinking “Well dying to yourself does hurt.” Yes, dying to ourselves is painful too, but what about that moment when God decides to bring something to life? Birth is painful. As a child, I remember my mother loved to watch child birth. We often had the Tv turned to some medical channel and some woman was screaming as she was giving birth to new life and I often remember thinking “that is not natural! That must be the worst kind of pain and I don’t ever want to go through that!” My mom would tell me that it was beautiful and the pain was nothing compared to the joy that came at the sound of that baby’s first cry. “Yeah right!” I always retorted. What she said reminds me of a verse in the Bible: “But for the joy that was set before Him, He (Jesus) endured the cross.” (Hebrews 12:2) Jesus endured the greatest of pain so that I could know life and that pain was nothing compared to the sound of my first cry to Him. Bringing life is painful.
God wants to bring life to the parts of us that we once believed were dead. He wants to birth new life. Our team was recently on an inner healing retreat with the Kingdom Journeys ladies and God has been stirring us up. He has taken us back and reminded us of hurts and pains in our pasts so that He could breath healing, birth life. I have found that when life can reign, seldom will God allow death to remain. So He reminded me of a hurt I had endured but had locked away. In this place I said no one could enter, my Daddy reached in and gently picked up. At first I could not understand why God would bring it up. I asked Him why He had reminded me of it here, now. What did this hurt have to do with anything? Daddy spoke gently to my heart as He said “It was here, in this moment of hurt that you turned your dreamer off.” Because of pain, I had tried to protect myself from ever being hurt again and in doing so, kept my most precious Father at a distance. I had been asking what was between us…this was between us. “I brought you here to turn your dreamer on again.” He whispered to me. It is painful to remember the things that have hurt us but to bring healing to those wounds is much more painful! “Courage dear heart.” Dad is breathing life into the atmosphere that once whispered death. It will take courage to step out onto the waves but that is from where my Love is calling, therefore, I will go. For the joy that is set before me, the joy of being close to my Daddy, the joy of dreaming with Him again, I will endure the pain. Betty put it eloquently when she said “The blessing is in the process.” As I walk through this process, I will have the opportunity to bring my sisters with me, walking hand in hand as God begins to awaken dreamers. That is more blessing than I could ask for!
