Have you ever looked at your pain in this way? This perspective really struck a chord with me.
Loss has revealed so much about my own struggles. Losing Julian has revealed where my mind can go on my darkest days, what sins I struggle with daily and that my faith is only sustained by Christ. If left to myself I would camp out deep in the pit of despair with guilt holding me there.
At the same time, Julian’s loss has shoved me into a deeper understanding of God, and a desire/need to walk closely with Him. I need His Word every morning, noon, and night to sustain me through each day. I’ve witnessed the power of crying out your heart to Him. The process of sanctification in me is no easy pill to swallow but I’m thankful he’s doing it and that nothing he’s doing in me will be wasted.
The pain of losing a child doesn’t go away. May I remember to be a good steward of it.
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STEWARDS OF OUR SCARS by Chad Bird
Years ago, while Frederick Buechner was speaking to a group of Christians at a Texas retreat, he recounted a painful incident from his childhood. Afterward, a man named Howard Butt approached him and said, “You have had a good deal of pain in your life, and you have been a good steward of it.”
His words took Buechner aback. He had never thought of pain, and its impact on his life, in terms of stewardship. But the more he reflected on what it means to be a steward, the more he realized how true the man’s words had been. Later, he wrote, “If you manage to put behind you the painful things that happen to you as if they never really happened or didn’t really matter all that much when they did, then the deepest and most human things you have in you to become are not apt to happen either.”
Whatever sufferings we have endured, self-inflicted or otherwise, are scars our Father has granted us as a sacred duty.
Stewards do not own that for which they are responsible; they are called to faithfully manage what another has given them. Our scars are God’s gifts to us. They are the means Jesus uses not to anchor us to the past but to propel us into the future as those who know the wounding power and healing grace of God.
-from my book, Night Driving: Notes from a Prodigal Soul
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