Have you ever stopped to ask God why you go through some of the things that you go through? We especially seem to ask Him that question when we go through a difficult situation. There are times that we ask that question only to end up with an answer that we really don’t want to hear. We expect God to give us the clarity that we are demanding, but He just doesn’t work that way. He has something greater in mind because His ways are not our ways.

Most of the time when we ask that question we are really only looking out for the greater good of ourselves. It’s difficult to see how God could be working in the midst of something so painful. What if I told you that all of the tough things that we go through aren’t even about us? What if I told you that it was all about someone else? You see, that really is the way that it is when we are followers of Christ. Your pain isn’t about you. Your pain is about someone else, and that someone else is the person going through the same thing that you just went through. God never wastes a hurt.

In my own personal life, I’ve had to make some hard decisions about what I was going to do with all of my pain. I could have decided to become bitter, resentful, live with unforgiveness, and be miserable for the rest of my life, or I could choose to give all of that pain to God and let Him use it for something greater; greater than what I could even see or imagine. With that being the case, I chose the latter.

Now let me just clear this up. Once I made that decision, it didn’t just magically disappear. I had to daily seek God and allow Him to do a greater work on the inside of me. It was too much for me to handle on my own. It was bigger than anything that I had the power to change or control. It was a God-sized task.

God began to change my heart to show me that everything that I had been through in my life was for the other person. The other person that was hurting just like I was. The other person that felt like their situation and life was hopeless. The other person that was struggling just like me to make sense of so many things that didn’t. Everything that I had gone through was about being able to speak life, encouragement, and hope into a person that was going through a rough patch just like I was. If I hadn’t been through some of the things that I had been through, then I would never be able to relate to the other person. Going through my difficult season allowed me the opportunity to speak into the other person’s life.

With all of that being said, God continues to bring me so many opportunities to reach out to hurting and broken people, but it never would have happened had I not made the decision to be vulnerable and transparent in sharing my story. I didn’t want to waste any of my hurt. That pain was too precious to be thrown away. It was meant to be a fountain of God’s love poured into the lives of wounded people just like me. My pain had actually become my greatest blessing. It was truly a blessing in disguise.

So what about you? Are you going to hold onto unnecessary hurt and pain only because you don’t see how God is going to use it to help someone else or are you ready to dive in and give it to God. There are people only you are going to be able to reach, but that’s not going to happen until you decide that this burden is just too heavy to carry on your own. You have a beautiful gift on the inside of you that needs to be shared, and that gift is just what that other person needs. They need you and all that your pain has taught you.

P.S. So Satan, I am putting you on high alert! All of that garbage that you have tried to bring into my life to destroy it is now going to be my greatest launching pad into a life of new and unexpected ministry that I never knew existed on the inside of me. All you did was set me up for my destiny. My Abba Father has taken what you meant for evil and made it into something beautiful and good. You may have knocked me down a few times, but I’m not staying there. I’m getting up, dusting off my feet, and moving forward into the beautiful life that God had planned all along for me from the very beginning.