pain
Your most broken moments are not felt alone.
At 24 I already feel intimately acquainted with pain. There is certainly a reality to the fact that I am still so young, but some of my life circumstances have already brought me to places of deep pain.
Pain does not need to equate to hopelessness, however. Hear me when I say this, I have struggled with that path too many times. But what I am still very much so actively learning is that pain can be a beautiful indicator of how good God is.
The logic here seems backwards. Pain often comes from the brokenness of this world. How then does pain lead to anything other than hopelessness?
For all the pain that this world brings, there is so much power in knowing the character of God.
God is good.
God is just.
God is gracious.
God is loving.
God is powerful.
God is the victor.
The concept to “count it all joy” felt textbook rather than real to me for many years. I will be honest that up until recently in my own life I have fought to do so, and even now I do not want to say that I won’t struggle with this again in the future.
I would not know God the way that I do, however, if I had not walked some of those paths.
You would not recognize the light of the stars if it was not in contrast to the darkness of the sky. By no means do I want to minimize God by saying that, but I want to emphasize the truth that we can better grasp the magnitude of something beautiful often through seeing it in contrast. God’s goodness is all the more vivid when we consider it against the horrors and depravity of our own sin and lives.
There is no way to minimize or shrink some of the atrocities that we experience as humans.
You cannot cognitively reframe abuse in a way that makes it something good.
You cannot cognitively reframe rape in a way that makes it something good.
You cannot cognitively reframe school shootings in a way that makes it something good.
You cannot cognitively reframe genocide in a way that makes it something good.
Sin is horrific.
Sin cannot be defeated through thought.
But sin has been defeated.
If we are willing to wrestle with the weight of the brokenness of our world, and can then grasp that there is victory, then we are left realizing how much greater our God truly is to have won.
If you have to shrink sin in order to make it fit in God’s power, then you are failing to understand who God truly is.
Yes, our world is deeply broken.
But our God is that much stronger.
Your pain is great.
God is greater.
Sin does not win. Pain does not have the final say.
* I want to include a quick disclaimer: I think that we can take events and experiences in life and use the tool of cognitive reframing to grow and change the narrative we tell ourselves regarding our experiences. Cognitive reframing is an amazing skill. My comments that you cannot cognitively reframe specific examples to be “good” is to push on the reality that there is no way to justify sin or for us as humans to turn sin into good. Sin is sin. I have many more thoughts on the beauty and blessing of cognitive reframing and believe there is beautiful biblical support for it, I just want to emphasize that while you can choose how to view the horrors you have experienced, that does not suddenly turn those horrors into something else. It is a conscious choice to glorify God with them rather than to let them hold power over you.
