God Never Wastes a Hurt

My oldest son and I are going on a missions trip to Rwanda this summer and we are so excited. We had a training on Sunday and had to come with our testimony to share. I had written mine 5-6 years ago when I was in women’s ministries but as I went to the computer to print it, I realized it needed a whole re-write to include my current circumstances. It was not easy adding in about my divorce but I realized as I was writing it, there was a much bigger common theme in my testimony, “God never wastes a hurt.” If we allow God to take our brokenness and use it to help and minister to others, then it gives our pain an even greater purpose.

Last time, I shared with you about Lysa Terkeurst’s book, “Who Holds the Key to Your Heart” and today, I want to look at a different chapter. This one is called Loneliness is Satan’s trap, Kindness is God’s reply.   In life, we will have hard times. Lysa says, “During these times we have a choice to cling to Jesus’ promises and seek his companionship or to walk in the darkness. To walk in the darkness means to be trapped by our loneliness. “   Satan would love to see us get trapped by our loneliness, to see ourselves as isolated and alone.

But God has another plan for us if we will let him. Instead of us feeling lonely and trapped, He wants us to use our hurt and pain to help others. I love this quote from this Chapter, “If you are lonely, reach out to another in kindness. For when we touch the one who needs healing, we touch the heart of the Healer Himself. And when He pours His healing through you to another, God’s healing touches you first and as a result you are healed.” Wow- this is powerful!

Who do you need to reach out to today? God has given each of us a story, a powerful story and He wants you to share it.   I know Pastor Rick always says that our hurts and pains become our ministry. Who better to help someone who struggles with infertility than someone how has struggled with infertility. Who better to minister to someone who has lost a parent than someone who has lost a parent.   Again, who needs to hear your story today?

I would like to close with this last quote from the book, “To walk the path the Lord delights in, we must be willing to let God use the circumstances of our lives to reach out to others. Let’s compare our hurts to stones littering our paths. We have a choice to do one of three things with these stones. We can use them to beat ourselves up, making our scars run deeper than they should. We can throw our stones at others, wounding them and making them also feel pain. Or we can use these stones to build bridges for others to walk across from their own darkness and pain into His healing light.”

My prayer is that we will choose the third option!

Dear God, you know all of our hearts: our hurts and pains, our joys and delights. It is so easy for us to share our joy with others but there is so much healing when we share our hurts and pains. You want us to be vulnerable with others and I pray that today we can take our hurtful stones and build bridges with them.   Use us today to show Your kindness to others by being authentic and real with all the good and hard times in our life. We love you and thank you that we don’t ever have to feel alone for you are with us. Amen!