The wounds. The scars. The goodness of God.

 I have been thinking about the last post on trust; that there are a few things I could add that make it complete. Things like, so when I am hurt, disappointed, frustrated or betrayed what can I do to heal. As usual, I am not writing to give you answers but provoke you to think about it and if you find some here, great.

To begin with, if you examine the title of this post; you will wonder how scars and wounds are on the same line with the goodness of God. A lot of people struggle with understanding how God can be good and loving yet there is so much evil in the world. That will not be my focus, but I will definitely touch on that. I love sharing my experiences and I wanna share about one I had this morning. After doing my devotion today, I wanted to pray and as usual, I put on some good song to just make sure my mind is aligned to that mood of prayer. On my playlist, I came across Nichole Nordeman’s song “You are good” and listening to it, somehow something shifted in me. I stopped thinking of how many needs I can present to God in prayer and my heart burst out with thanksgiving. I will tell you, I found myself being grateful for things you wouldn’t think I should be grateful for. Things that should have driven me to ask God why He let them happen. Well, let me admit, when they were happening, I asked Him why but now, I know better and I am grateful.

I am not digressing. Hold on😊😊. A lot of you have wounds that are still fresh, inflicted by people we know and some that we do not know. In most cases, we are wounded by the closest people. The people we love the most. The people we trusted the most. That is bound to happen, it is a law we cannot run away from and most times one we do not understand. And we would but our emotions and selfishness. When you choose to love and trust someone, you become vulnerable to them in ways you may not have control over and really, that is how it should be. The one part we usually forget is, we basically give them the right to hurt us. When you love and trust someone, what you are silently telling them is, “Hey, you have a right to hurt me” and for the human they are, they definitely will hurt you at one point. Sometimes bearably and sometimes unbearably and the latter results to what we were addressing in the last post. They break your heart to pieces, and you vow never to trust them or anyone else. I tell my fiancée that she has my permission to hurt me because I know she is human. As human as we all are, she will hurt me and that’s okay. I know I will hurt her too but that’s not okay😉😉😂😂. I mean it’s harder to allow yourself to hurt someone you love than it is to allow them to hurt you. Let’s leave that for another day.

Now, have you heard of the saying time heals? I tend to believe that time does not heal, it is God that heals, in time. I think the first important thing in the process of healing is accepting that you are hurt and it is okay ( more often than not we think it is not okay). Hurting is not uncommon or foreign and there is nothing you can do to change the fact that you are hurt or that person betrayed you. I don't mean to say that we should get used to getting hurt, but maybe we should. Then as I mentioned in the last post, look inside for the strength to forgive and look up to God and find a reason to forgive. Forgiveness isn’t an easy thing. Forgiveness is for the strong. Many people find it hard to forgive because they have some sort of control over the person that hurt them – an illusion I should say. That they can press and fold, beat and step on the person that hurt them, in their minds of course. They do not realize that they hurt even more. That the more you keep that grudge, bitterness creeps in and you don’t want that – it could kill you while alive. An important thing to note is that forgiveness is not for the offender, it is for the offended. You set yourself free when you forgive. Don’t think that forgiving that person is doing them a favour. No. You are doing yourself a favour to forgive them and that is regardless of whether they ask for the forgiveness or not.

Listen someone, the cure to that pain and hurt is not holding on to it. The cure is forgiving and letting those people out of your heart. Whether you make amends or not, you will have released yourself from that pain. The answer is forgiving. And that is not so easy. You need God to help you through it. You need to be willing to be helped and to let go.

"Well, Andrew, so what has all this got to do with the goodness of God?" It has everything to do with it. "How? He let me get hurt. He let me get wounded." Yes, He did. But, just give me a chance to help you understand.  I hope you do.

When we want to talk about His goodness; I would like us to not just think about the wounds of broken trust but anything really. Any wound. Any terrible thing that happened and I know that in most cases, it’s people who are responsible. Let’s begin with God’s sovereignty and that He is all-knowing. Scripture says that He knows the end from the beginning. So, God actually knew far before you got hurt. (Do you wanna hit Him for knowing and not preventing it?😜😜) Well, He also knew that He cannot bend someone’s choice to make them not hurt you – He has given us a free will, remember? The most unfathomable thing is that even when He was letting that happen, God was good, and He still is. Now that is hard to wrap around your head, isn’t it? But it is the truth. When we think of good, we want to link it to our emotions and feel that it is good. That is where we go wrong. Because that is not how God sees it and the one thing I have come to believe is that at heart, God wants the best for us and this means that He could allow us to go through pain if that is what it will take to get us and make us the best.

God’s plan and purpose is not to put us through the pain. It is our fallen nature, sin in us, ours or other people’s terrible choices that get us into pain and hurt. And the beauty of God is in taking that pain and hurt and making it work for our good. God takes into account all the choices we and other people make to forge His good plans for us.  He is good even when it hurts and most times His goodness could feel like pain, but He is still good.

I want you to look back and remember all the times you were in pain and you asked God why? More times than not, you will see that it was for your good and if it were not for those wounds and those scars, you would not be where you are. Because I strongly believe that many times, He uses those wounds and scars to point us back to Himself. So, look at those wounds and those scars and thank God that you have them.