Pain, hurt, abandonment, betrayal. Have you been there? Our God, Jesus, has been there too. He is familiar with all the suffering that we experience because He became a man and experienced it personally.
But more than to empathize he came to bring mercy, justice, forgiveness, and peace. Mercy because He saw we could not save ourselves from our sin and chose to save us Himself. Justice because He suffered in our place to pay what we owed God for our evil attitudes and actions. Forgiveness because with His own blood He entered Heaven and purchased our forgiveness. Peace because the war is over, God has reconciled Man to Himself, which was God's planned design before the foundation of the world.
Jesus knows your pain perfectly. He's experienced it. But He has also overcome it. When we put our trust in Him to forgive our wrong attitudes and actions He gives us His Spirit and enables us to forgive others and ourselves. Healing may come slowly. And the affects of sin may last longer than we want them to last.
But Jesus' Spirit lives within us, comforting us and telling us the truth about Him and ourselves and others. The truth about Him is that God loves us unconditionally and always wants the best for us regardless of what it costs Him. The truth about ourselves is that we are now new creations in Jesus, fully holy and righteous. And the truth about others is that they are either already brothers and sisters in Christ or we have the privilege of leading them to the One who gave His life for them and us.
Jesus does not let my pain go to waste. He has used it to help others in pain. And by helping others through their pain I have found His joy and it has made the past pain worth it!
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