Pain

I am going completely out of order, which is atypical for me. I have spoken briefly in prior posts about spiritual names. I realize that concept is unique to my generation. Many millennial Christians believe that we have a spiritual name aside from the name given to us from our parents. I have one friend who is Warrior Princess; another who is Iron and Wine; and another who is Grace. My name is Freedom Fighter. I received this name my sophomore year of college and countless hours of blood, sweat and tears have gone into discovering the implications of who that name represents and why it is my name. Freedom Fighter is actually an acronym. It is who I am supposed to be and how I am supposed to live. However, I feel like there are great spiritual truths that are applicable to each person inside each letter of the acronym. Today I feel compelled to talk about the first "R" in fReedom fighter.

The R stands for realize there is pain in the process and the process takes time.  Pain is a part of life. I did not get where I am at over night. I also cannot get over the hurts of my life over night either. I must take a restoration point of view. Restoration takes time, steps and work.

The enemy hates me (and us). He wants me to be ignorant, isolated and intimidated. Satan has no authority to trick me into using my will against myself. He can only work if I am ignorant to his ways of deception or give into the pain and let him win. In isolation, the tempter always speaks louder. Someone once said that you are only as sick as your secret. He works in secrecy and in the shame of isolation. He will also try to intimidate me into not living how I know I should. Pain should not intimidate or defeat me; only remind me that I am in a battle. In moments of pain and frustration I have to do all in my power to weed out deception. Feelings and emotions have a funny way of deceiving. And the enemy will always disguise himself as something attractive, that will take away some of the pain. He will always identify me by my past and use that to bring the pain to the forefront of my mind.

Unfortunately for me, growth comes out of brokenness. Scars are stronger than skin. Broken bones grow back stronger than the bone surrounding it. Wounds of the heart leave scars that can enable me to minister to other people in pain. I hate that, that is true. However, I have seen in first hand too many times to deny. God is more than able to turn pain into purpose, mess into message, and test into testimony. There is nothing that God cannot fix, redeem or restore. I believe that theologically, but it is extremely difficult to believe in my own life.



I have tried to tidy myself up instead of just handing my pain to God. I still am guilty of that most of the time. However, when I feel like I am nowhere good enough, I have to remind myself that one of the few people that Christ ever pronounced forgiveness to was the thief on the cross. Also, the very first person that was "saved" was (depending on interpretation, but my personal belief) was the woman at the well. She was an adulterer and was shunned by everyone. Also she was a Samaritan. Christ shouldn't have talked to her simply based on the fact he was a Jew. Not only did he talk her her, he revealed himself as the Messiah to her! Surely, I can bring my heart ache and pain to him.