Understanding in pain

I purchased new knives recently. I mean, I didn’t spend a fortune on them, but the beauty of slicing and dicing with sharp precision cannot be understated. Well, that is, until it is the tip of your middle finger, and no, no stitches or anything drastic. Just enough to be a bother, to cause pain, to catch on everything, to be a reminder. The healing is slow and stupid, but it’s always there.

I keep thinking about this little cut and how much I think about it, every time I reopen it and have to care for it, which brought me to my chronic pain. Doing all I can do to conquer it, move past it and not allow it to define me.

Unless, what if suffering has a greater purpose?

I may not understand God’s complete plan here, but what I do know is this. When someone says to me, I hurt. There is understanding between us. When someone says to me, I don’t get, why me? We have a common ground. When someone says to me, will God ever? We have the word to counsel and provide hope for one another.

This pain, this heartache is not God’s plaything. I am going to trust him. As the song I shared said, Thy will be done. It is hard to count it joy. It is hard to keep my head quiet when I want and need to do so many things. He sees me. He sees you, right where you are today.

¹⁶ May He grant you out of the riches of His glory, to be strengthened and spiritually energized with power through His Spirit in your inner self, [indwelling your innermost being and personality], ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through your faith. And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love, ¹⁸ be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love]; ¹⁹ and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience] the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself]. Ephesians 3:16-19 AMP

This prayer in Ephesians chapter 3. Let’s pray it together. Let’s pray that whatever we are facing, may we be strengthened and spiritually energized with power through the Spirit.

May Christ dwell in our hearts today through faith.

Deeply rooted and grounded in love, knowing deeply that His love is wide, deep, long and high. Know the love of Christ that actually surpasses all knowledge and then be filled up with the fullness of God and experience his presence, flooding you completely.

Believe it. Print it out. Write it out. Memorize it. This is the truth. He is here, in your stuff, in my stuff. Present it to him.

A picture for your smile today? Just like this cat, lay it all in his lap.

Adorable, right?

However where this picture fails, God is here. It’s not a fake lap. He is true comfort. Welcome him. Put it all on him. He will take it all.

Hold on to the truth today. Peace.