Your Past Pain Is Only Part of the Story

It can be very easy to stay stuck in the past especially when a past season has been very difficult. From my personal experience, I know the struggle is real.

When I was in the middle of a dark time in my life, the Lord spoke to me from the song Out of Hiding by Steffany Gretzinger. I woke up one morning hearing the lyric, “Oh, as you run, what hindered love will only become part of the story.”

That phrase has continued to encourage me ever since.

Our Past Season is Only Part of the Story

The pain that God authorizes only becomes part of the beautiful story He is writing through our lives. He is the best Author and He knows how to turn our greatest pain into our greatest blessing. He works ALL things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). As we run forward, let’s look to Jesus and trust in Him.

In Jesus’ darkest moment, the greatest miracle happened. His most agonizing experience of being physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually tortured for our sake accomplished salvation for all of mankind. Even today, God turns Jesus’ lifetime of suffering into our greatest blessing as we believe and receive it.

God can turn our greatest suffering into a testimony of His glory that has the power to multiply miracles for other people. Like Jesus, our testimonies expand God’s Kingdom and are a blessing for others.

For example, the book of Job in the Bible recounts the events of Job’s life. He lost his children and property. He had a debilitating disease. His friends and wife were not supportive.

After his dark season, the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends and gave him twice as much as he had before (Job 42:10).

If you feel stuck in the trauma and pain of your past season, take some time to imagine how many people are coming behind you. How many people are going to be blessed through God’s work in your life? How many people are going to enjoy the fruit of what God has done in your life at the feast table of your testimony? Just imagine!

Our Past Season Was Not Wasted

It can be very easy to agree with the lie that all of our tears and trials have been for nothing. But our past season has not been wasted. God doesn’t waste pain.

I recently did some research on the life cycle of butterflies. In order for a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it has to go through a dark chrysalis season. I discovered that during the chrysalis phase, caterpillars lose everything. While inside the chrysalis, caterpillars turn into a soupy-like substance, with no antenna or legs. It’s a messy process.

After some time in the chrysalis, the caterpillar completely transforms. Everything that was lost is restored, and even more is added. Wings with bright colors begin to emerge. The antenna and legs grow back as well. The caterpillar breaks free from its dark season and becomes a butterfly with new wings.

Just like the butterfly, as we emerge from our past season, we will fly into the destiny God has for us. We will fly on the winds of His Spirit, now equipped to carry His glory in new ways. Our chrysalis season was just a part of the process of transformation. Our chrysalis was our metamorphosis where God transformed our heart into a prepared vessel ready to carry His glory to the world.

As we choose to run forward, we will fly free like a butterfly in the springtime of God’s faithfulness. Our life will be a testimony of His goodness to the world.

So, friends, let’s put on our shoes and start running toward the redemptive blessing God has for us. Let’s move forward with a joyful, confident expectation in our hearts as we anticipate the glorious and unimaginable ways God will turn our greatest pain for good both for us and for other people.

With the Lord there is full, excessive and greatly multiplied redemption! (Psalm 130:7)

These verses have been an encouragement to me:

“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)