Trusting God Through the Pain of Your PastSample

Day Two

Waiting for Morning

Scripture: Psalm 30:5; Ecclesiastes 3:11; Isaiah 43:19

Decades ago, I enjoyed doing counted cross-stitch in my spare time. Our home was filled with pictures, towels, boxes, Christmas stockings, and jewelry made from my carefully stitched canvases. During the process of creating, I tended to focus on the ugliness of the backside where all my colored threads started, stopped, intertwined, and knotted together. But once the project was completed and it could be seen as the work of art it was, the back no longer begged for my attention because the completed work was all that mattered.

The same is true of our lives. During our trials, we tend to focus on the pain. But ultimately, our scars represent the merciful healing of a good God who makes “all things new” in his own way and in his perfect time. (See Ecclesiastes 3:11 and Isaiah 43:19.)

While we tend to see the ugly, knotted mass of our pain and suffering, and the physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual fallout, Jesus sees the beautiful tapestry created by the highs and the lows, the good and the bad, of our lives.

Are you feeling especially weary today? Have you played by the rules, taken the high road, sacrificed, prayed, believed, hoped, and worked but still feel like resolution eludes you? Maybe you know “joy comes in the morning,” as the psalmist promises (Psalm 30:5), but your night has grown dark and long, and it hasn’t felt like morning in a long time.

My friend, our scars are not a bad thing! Scars signify a battle has occurred. As he does his healing work in our lives, Jesus is glorified in and through our scars since we reflect more of him because of our suffering. And if you can hold on to the lessons and stories your sacred scars tell, you will see God’s redemptive hand in them, an incredible work of art that only traveling through pain can bring.

Father, I am still processing and healing. I need your comfort. I know you sympathize with my suffering. Let me appreciate that in a real and tangible way. And when I bear the sacred scars that testify to the healing I received, help me use that pain for good and comfort others with the comfort you gave me. In Jesus’s name, amen.