Confronting what You can’t forget

What if the pain you are so desperately running from is the key that God wants to use to set you free and help you live a purpose-driven life?

If there’s one thing that I think God does well, it’s expose us. He strips back the things we use to mask what resides within us and reveals more about us than we usually anticipate.

No one likes to be exposed. Real, raw parts of ourselves are more easily left hidden. It’s so easy to numb out pain, to avoid the things that broke us and focus on the habits that we use to rebuild and maintain a semblance of control and comfort.

I would argue that God’s exposure of the depths of our pain is actually a necessary step of sanctification. What if your brain isn’t broken? What if everything you can’t forget is speaking a deeper need that the Lord can heal in you?

It’s easy to applaud the experiences we survived and our own strength. It makes for a flashy testimony in the moment. But… 

The more research I do—the more I examine the Gospel—I see a different picture of Jesus. 

The Son of God had deep emotions: He knew pain. Rejection. Grief. Joy. Love. He traversed the depths facing the death of Lazarus and then again in the garden of Gethsemane with humility and then chose not to numb out the physical AND the emotional pain as He went to the cross for us in the ultimate sacrifice. He showed such compassion for people who were crushed by sin and shame. He drew them out of it with mercy and grace.

Jesus left an entirely different path when it came to pain. What if we have been missing an important piece of what it means to live in a Christlike manner?

What if one of the more Christlike choices we can make… is to feel? To be vulnerable? To confront pain and shine a light on it?

When we do face what has broken us, crushed and hurt us, I think we find something in those pain points: purpose. Redemption. The softening of edges as the hand of the Lord tenderly heals what you’ve carried for so long. He leaves with you a gift: a new path that calls to others and encourages freedom in the testimonies of so many others.

Be curious today, friend. Be brave. Step into the parts of your heart that you didn’t want to shine a light on, and see what He will change in your life.

What you went through was not for nothing.

You were designed for an abundant, purpose-driven life.