Redefining Your Hurts: 52 Devotions To Encourage Your Heart (Paperback or Softback)

Internal pain isn't always externally visible. However, anger, profanity, and explosive outbursts are signs that someone has hit their maximum of frustration. We can know someone for decades and not have an inkling of their past. The same can be said of us. Sometimes it's easier to hide our hurt than to express and deal with it. That's why we're blindsided when normally calm person explodes over a small matter. Often, the incident has triggered their internal hurt pocket and what we observe is the outcome of hidden pain.

We can't avoid pain or being hurt. So how can we prevent erupting? We first need to recognize that there have been times we've felt wronged, disrespected or unfortunately abused by others. Those situations are hurtful. Strong feelings about them are natural. And working through those emotions when it's fresh is preferable to stuffing the pain inside and then exploding when it's triggered.

Contrary to what many might believe, God is not the author of pain. The garden God prepared was perfect. Pain came as a consequence to mankind's sin, and now we must address it or live with an internal inferno that can unexpectedly erupt.

Mistreatment and pain are littered throughout Scripture. Murder, theft, sibling rivalry, betrayal, and neglected children-the infractions are too numerous to list. Each story is a personal experience. Some handled it well and many did not.

Cain did not. He killed his brother. And Moses, in anger broke the tablet containing the original ten commandments God had given him. Contrast that with Joseph who forgave his brothers for planning to murder him, then selling him as a slave instead, thus separating him from his father for decades. Joseph pondered these hard places. He saw that God used it to move him to where God would ultimately use Joseph. He processed the pain and decided he could forgive that very deep hurt. The question is: can we? Will we choose to try?

Redefining your hurt is a process in which each of the readings will bring up a challenging situation or a new way to see God in the circumstances. The reader is encouraged to work through the devotion prayerfully, seeking to see God in a new way.

Perhaps like Joseph, we too can learn to forgive as Paul instructs in Colossians 3:13 so we can have the peace of God in our hearts and in our minds.

This devotional won't read itself. It will take effort, repeated determination for a habit to form. A daily desire in seeking God and His answers for your life. The Holy Spirit can bring to mind the people or circumstances that challenge our peace. It's our job to read how Scripture advises us to handle it. Through prayer and God's guidance in His Word, we can learn to release that hurt to His perfect judgment.

Just as there are Biblical stories about hurt, there are also a myriad of accounts of people who followed God through their hard places and were greatly blessed. The challenge is to reframe your hurt as a picture on God's wall. You get to decide what that photo looks like. Through God's heavenly lens, a shepherd boy named David became not only a giant killer, but after years of being hunted as rival to Saul's throne, he became king.

Not many of us will face such daunting challenges, but to know it is possible to overcome such adversity can only bring us hope. I pray you'll consider this challenge a steppingstone to a deeper relationship with God.

We can use God's tools-his Word and his ways to become internally and emotionally healthier and enjoy our earthly journey. God desires us to join him in the spiritual battle that he has already won. If we do, how can we lose?

Be encouraged. You don't walk alone.