Hello everyone!
You probably read the title to this blog and thought, "What could ever be good about pain?!" You may even write to me and tell me that. I welcome any thoughts and comments on this as well. Allow me to explain. I can tell you there can be alot of good to pain in our lives. Let's consider tattoos as an example. I have several of those so I can speak to this.
A tatoo begins as a black outline and it hurts somewhat to get that black outline completed, yet it is the beginning of something beautiful. Then color is added. Color hurts a little more. The tattoo is then completed in either one setting or several and each time or the one time, it hurts. You take care of your new colorful "wound", if you will, as you have been instructed to as this is very important. Two weeks pass. Now your tattoo is healed and it is a beautiful piece of art!! No more pain, only vibrant color and beauty!
Tattoos are simply my example to illustrate how emotional and mental pain can be turned into beauty. Yes emotional and mental pain hurt and sometimes they can hurt really bad. However, it is in that pain that a beautiful thing can emerge. You can emerge from that pain a better person, a beautiful person, a beautiful remade butterfly if you will. It is all in how you take care of the wound and Who you let take care of the wound.
I certainly found this to be true. I could have left my "wounds" of an abusive relationship and the death of my husband alone. I could have chosen not to care for myself and to not take care of my emotional and mental health. I could have chosen not to let God take care of me either. Just like a tattoo if you don't take care of those "wounds", they will get infected, they will fester and then you will have something very ugly to deal with that will affect not only you but others too. There will be no beauty in those "wounds", only the reminder of what could have been.
I chose instead to let God heal my "wounds." I chose to take care of them. I chose to let pain make me who I am today. I did not run away or ignore it. Yes, there will always be scares, wounds produce scares. However, they are beautiful scares just like my beautiful tattoos which by the way are also scares in and of themselves.
Let pain do it's work in your heart and let God do His work as well. Care for your "wounds." Don't run or be afraid of pain and watch God turn something hurtful into something beautiful and wonderful!
I will leave you with Isaiah 61:1; The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed and commissioned me to bring good news to the humble and afflicted; He has sent me to bind up [the wounds of] the brokenhearted, to proclaim release [from confinement and condemnation] to the [physical and spiritual] captives and freedom to prisoners...
Until next time,
Elizabeth