“As I listen to pain in the community of faith, rarely (if ever) have I heard anyone say that their interpersonal pain was sourced in theological disagreements about Christ’s deity or the nature of salvation, but rather in how they were treated. . . . Does every question have one and only one reasonable answer? […]
“When we keep picking at the scab of past pain, refusing to allow the wound to heal, we will become bitter. And bitterness spawns other undesirable emotions and actions. Look at the words Paul tethered to bitterness: rage, anger, brawling, slander, malice. A bitter root will produce bitter fruit. It has no choice.”- Sharon Jaynes […]
“It’s impossible to travel through life and not collect emotional souvenirs. We are either carrying healthy perspectives or files of proof from our past. . . . When we choose to walk down the path of correcting the dots, we aren’t changing where we’ve been, but we’re sorting through our souvenirs to determine what says […]
“When we can lovingly turn toward our pain, expressed in various ways by our bodies, we often begin to find we have choices we couldn’t see before.”- Aundi Kolber “Our bodies are prophets. They know when things are out of whack and they say so.”- Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar to the World In Chapter […]
“We can be blind to God’s good gifts because we focus on what isn’t working right now and how hopeless we feel in our day-to-day life. . . . when we are continually focused on the pain we feel, moving out of it doesn’t happen easily. There are times when we need to sit in […]
“It’s not a single regrettable mistake that brings our world crashing down around us, but a slow and steady injury of the spirit. We quit because we’re tired of being hurt. We walk away nob because of a massive, disqualifying mistake but because of the accumulated effect of unhealed wounds.”- Jeff Manion “If an enemy […]
“Pain can be a valuable tool. It’s the all-important message alerting us to pay attention so we don’t further damage ourselves or others. Without pain, we could even cut, burn, or damage ourselves, and not know it. So where do you feel some pain? . . . Whatever the cause, pain can be sharp, sending […]
“I actually begin to feel grateful for pain’s unique counsel. I start to believe that life’s pains can surprisingly become gifts. Suffering shakes up everything, but eventually it all must settle. With Jesus at our side, it all settles on hope.”- Aubrey Sampson In Appendix A (“Advice – or not: Advice about Advice”) of The […]
“In a world full of hate, abuse, and game change, God doesn’t avoid or ignore pain. He sings a louder song over it. And he invites his hurting people to sing with him.”- Aubrey Sampson “Gideon replied, ‘If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really […]
“Feeling the pain is the first step toward healing the pain. The longer we avoid the feeling, the more we delay our healing. We can numb it, ignore it, or pretend it doesn’t exist, but all those options lead to an eventual breakdown, not a breakthrough.”- Lysa TerKeurst In Chapter 3 (“But How Do I […]
“Suffering is the intersection where life’s deepest pains meet with the most wonderful blessings of grace. . . . Suffering is where weakness intersects with strength, confusion intersects with wisdom, sorrow intersects with joy, and despair intersects with hope.”- Paul David Tripp In Chapter 14 (“The Comfort of a Heart at Rest”), the final chapter […]
“Here is suffering’s paradox: the very things we would do anything to avoid, the very things that confront our understanding of who we are, and the very things that cause us the most pain become the very things that usher into our lives the blessings of help, hope, peace, and rest that we all long […]