Putting Your Feet in the Water!

Good Morning Ladies (and few gents),

Today’s devotion included below “Put Your Toes in the Water” is a reminder from GiG Mary that, “Change is a natural part of life. We can embrace it, or we can fight it … Change is a sign of growth and life and is sometimes needed simply to survive.”

GiG, I don’t know about you but I’m in a season of change. Everywhere I turn something’s changing and I can either change with it or resist it. Mind you these changes that I’m talking about are not changes that take me away from God or living out his commands, but instead changes that reawaken his purpose and plan for my life. Then the flip side is that there are a host of changes that are pressing upon me, making me uncomfortable, saddened, and in some cases enraged because they are anti-biblical, anti-Jesus, or anti-family. I’m resisting those changes with every fiber of my being.

I was reading Isaiah 53: 5 in the New Living Translation (NLT) not long ago and it reads,

But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

Now I’ve read that passage many times before, but there was a new message the Holy Spirit was teaching me that’s worth sharing.

GiG, we often take for granted our understanding of the Bible, but using my sanctified imagination, I tried putting myself back in that world of an Old Testament person understanding the idea of Christ dying for our sins (our rebellion)—actually bearing the punishment that we deserved. The sacrifices suggested the idea, but it is one thing to kill a lamb, and something quite different to think of God’s chosen servant as that Lamb. But God was pulling aside the curtain of time to let the people of Isaiah’s day look ahead to the suffering of the future Messiah and the resulting forgiveness made available to all mankind.

Now let me try and place this in today’s context. Often our deepest passions in life are born from our deepest pain. We become what I’ve learned are “wounded healers”—someone whose own pain serves as inspiration to help others in similar life circumstances.

GiG, I’ve lived my share of pain which motivates me to want to come alongside others. Don’t get this twisted; suffering people don’t need instruction, but instead they need someone unafraid to sit beside them in their dark experiences, someone to share the misery of what they’re going through.

Maybe you’ve been there, and your compassion—your very presence—in the midst of the difficulties someone’s facing becomes the salve God is using to help that individual find strength and to point her (or him) to the One whose wounds ultimately heal us all. I have and not until recently has this “super power” been made so crystal clear.

May we be encouraged to instead of wallow in our pain, have our own pity party, but instead thank God for allowing us to be a “wounded healer.” And recognize that our presence may be salve He is using to help someone this week, this month, this year or for many years to come.

Called to serve and encouraging others to thrive,

DEA: Embracing a Work-Hard, Rest-Well Life and Loving My Priorities, Loving My Life