Can God really use my pain for something good?
Losing my mom as a little girl has been one of the single most painful yet defining moments of my life. I have faith that God can and does bring good out of terrible situations, but that’s sometimes so difficult to believe when you’re the one going through that difficult situation.
It wasn’t until I began having girls of my own that I realized how much I never fully grieved my mother’s death or realized what a process grief can be. My heart was overflowing with so much love for my girls when they were born while at the same time being terrified to my very core that I was going to die. Every pain, every symptom I had turned into a possibility of cancer. I didn’t realize how much my brain had associated motherhood with getting sick and dying. I often thought of my mother, having two young children and knowing she’d have to leave them. A mother’s worst nightmare but it was her reality. I had many sleepless nights mourning her, crying for her, and so panicked it would happen to me too.
I realized I did a very good job of burying a lot of emotions for a long time and that they desperately needed to come to the surface and be dealt with. And I don’t even think I really knew what that meant. But I acknowledged my feelings. I allowed them to come to the surface, I felt them in their fullness without getting uncomfortable and pushing them back down. And I prayed. I prayed for God to give me faith that He can and WILL turn things around for His good, that He IS in control. That he WILL give us a new song and turn our mourning into dancing. I also realized that I didn’t fully believe any of those things because I held on so tight to my pain and buried it for so long. There was never a release. To really trust God means to give Him our pain completely and trust that He will make all things work together for His good. I realized I never really did that when I lost my mom at such a young age. I really feel that He blessed me with my girls to help me really and truly put my faith in Him.
For a long time I avoided any news stories that had to do with children suffering. It was too much for me and would send me into a panic attack. Now, I can hear those stories and feel sad but not become paralyzed. And I think that’s what healing looks like; our emotions no longer consume us.
Children are my calling. I know that without a shadow of a doubt. And I need to be able to be strong enough to not fall apart every time I hear about a difficult situation involving a child, because then I would never be able to reach out and help; I would spend my life running from my calling. And that’s what happens when we don’t completely surrender and put our faith in God in the midst of our pain. We never get to see the good God can bring out of that pain because we run away from the healing.
As a therapist, I know I was put here to advocate for children. As a society, we are just starting to skim the surface of being able to understand how trauma and chaos impacts a child’s brain and ability to function pro socially. While others see a child who is defiant (I’m really beginning to not like that word), I see a child who may be so deprived for attention, he doesn’t know how to seek it in a healthy manner, and so he acts out and rebels. While others see a child who is disrespectful, I see a child who genuinely, to his core believes that no one cares about him and so he shouldn’t care about anyone else. While others see a child who has outbursts because they’re just “bad”, I see a child who has never learned how to deal with emotions in a healthy way and, because of trauma, perceives threat when it may not actually be there.
Because trauma doesn’t just make you sad; it can make you really mean. It can make you do crazy things just for attention and acceptance. It can make you believe you have to hurt others before they can hurt you because the world isn’t safe and people can’t be trusted. It can cause something called rejection sensitivity… becoming quick to think others don’t like you or are rejecting you, causing you to shut everyone out in an attempt to protect yourself and end up feeling isolated and depressed. But these are simply tactics that an individual has learned to use to survive due to growing up in an unpredictable environment. And if we never take the time to understand this, we are just setting these children up for failure. Imagine what a difference we could make if we looked past the behaviors and instead looked for what need the child is trying to have met… if we stopped taking these behaviors so personally and tried harder to help the hurting child instead of focusing on a punishment. It doesn’t mean excuse inappropriate behaviors and it doesn’t mean give a free pass and ignore consequences. It just means something more than delivering a punishment while ignoring the child.
But this is my calling in life… to advocate for children and to help shift the way we perceive all of these “bad” behaviors and learn to respond with compassion. And I never would have been able to step into it without healing. And I never wild have been able to heal without true surrender… Without asking God to help me have faith in His ultimate plan. That He will make everything right one day so I don’t have to let sadness paralyze me. Without faith, we can never fully heal from our pain and allow God to use us for all that He has called us to do.
There are truly awful and terrible things that happen in this world. We can’t just ignore them. We can’t ignore the suffering. We have to be strong enough to face it head on. Faith is what helps us do that. And that faith comes from giving God our own pain and watching how He can heal us and give us peace like only He can do.
if you have a hurt you’ve been ignoring, pain that hasn’t been dealt with, please, reach out to someone. Reach out to me if you’d like. I’d love to help.
“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever.” Psalm 30:11-12
