Pain

 

It was dark. For as long as I could remember, it was dark. I don’t know how to explain that moment when I first saw the light except for the fact that I felt indescribable excitement and a flood of paralyzing fear all at the same time. In my struggle to be free from my little prison cell I had also made it my home so to experience new life was so fearfully foreign to me.

It’s important to remember where you came from. Too many people look at a mighty tree and fail to recognize that its beginning was that of a once small seed. So small in fact that it would be tread upon by many an unknowing foot, and overlooked by almost everything and everyone, but God himself.

I know a little something about seedlings. I used to be one. I know you wouldn’t think of me as ever knowing what it felt like to look up at all. I am the largest, the tallest and the oldest in the forest; I am the Lodgepole Pine. I was born in adversary and in struggle but live in triumph.

Over the years I have collected many stories that are worth honorable mention, but no story as powerful as the one of my pain and suffering. It’s hard to rationalize pain. It’s not an easy subject to talk about let alone an easy path to walk down. The scope of how people react to pain is so broad that it is hard to pin down one way to deal with it. It seems so easy for some to cope and so difficult for others. Whether the reaction is one of fight or flight we still find ourselves in the same place, a place of weakness; a place of inadequacy.

The fight is raw, it is harsh and if we allow the pain to become the lie that the heart of God is cruel then we will grow bitter to the beauty that is still so very real in this world. Without faith it is impossible to please God and I would suggest that without faith it is also impossible to be pleased by God. If we fail to believe that God is GOOD even in the times when life is not, then we will allow the lies of Satan to grow a deep rooted bitterness in our souls. This bitterness will blind us to the truth of God’s amazing Love and taint everything after with a grey unforgiving hue. But if we choose to believe (out of our faith in Him) in His goodness, no matter how awful the circumstances in our life are, then he will grow inside of us, a peace, and a joy, and a sense of his comfort that no words can describe.

Let me take you back in time with me before I became a conqueror of hardship and believer in God’s amazing provision through trials.

A little known fact about us Lodge pole pines is that our seeds are incased in a cone completely impenetrable by any force other than the extreme heat caused by fire. A cone can stay dormant, hanging from a tree for several years. We grow to a hundred feet and produce Cones for two hundred years. We are a king among trees and yet it is the adversity of fire that grows us beyond the tiny safe world of our limited cone.

I would argue with the idea that God brings adversity. This is where I believe we lose our faith in his goodness. We see the pain as being more powerful than His love and so our faith is manipulated. When he refuses to take us out of our struggles and rather through a trying time, we blame him for the pain rather than recognizing that he wants us to conquer it rather than run from it. When people go to the doctor for a broken bone they don't blame the doctor for the break just because they hate having to have it reset. People may hate the process of Physical therapy but it is foolish to blame the physician for the source of pain. Often we get hurt and because we know the power of God, we question the healing process he chooses for us. God has a way of getting us healthy that we don’t generally want to go through.

 

Most of the fires that have come through my woods have been man made, or a bi product of the elements. I don’t believe that God brings pain into our life to direct us a certain way but I do believe that he never leaves us to be broken by the struggles and his pure love is always the driving force for his presence in our lives. If you go back to the beginning, pain was never a part of the plan. The very first lie of Satan, directed at man, in the Garden was that we should question God’s goodness and his intensions. Eve in turn took that bait and man began to believe that maybe God didn’t have his best interests at heart. The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy. He is a liar and he delights in our ignorance to blame God for things that are not in God’s character to be.

Let it be clear that God has created us to be overcomers. My God does not create pain but he does create us to be able to withstand its destructive nature. I am living proof of a creator that wastes no opportunity to turn a painful, destructive element into a life starting environment.

The day I was born, I was born from adversity. The fire came up all around me and death in all of its violence screamed for more. And yet by the design of God, life arose. Lodgepole seeds are only opened by extreme heat, and in that moment I feared that I would be consumed. But I fell into the rich soil that had been created but the fire, I immediately sprang forth and began to grow.

God created a way for us to thrive in the midst of great adversity. He did not bring the fire, he brought the life. He did not bring the death, except that of His only son, so that we could live eternal. Death has no hold on us. Every moment of unforgiveable, torturous pain Christ endured on a cross so that we could be that seed planted in the ashes of His life. God promises that no matter how terrible the pain of loss, that His love is as strong as death, His Jealousy for our hearts is as demanding as the grave.

What terrible thing have you been blaming God for? A death of a child, the rape of your innocence, the abandonment, the abuse of love, the loss of a part of your physical, emotional, mental or spiritual self? What terrible thing have you given a loving God undue credit for, as he has done nothing but hold his hand outstretched to you, pleading with tears in his eyes to seek that place inside of you that was meant to overcome these horrors. God did not do these things to you but he did create you with a failsafe for when times were just too hard to understand. In the midst of great trial we can rise above with the miraculous life of God himself dwelling inside of us; creating forgiveness, wholeness, healing, generosity, and a love that puts itself last and is then exalted above all! Wake up! Arise, you are defeated no more! Jesus was crucified but He also arose from that death and in our hardest moments of unimaginable pain we can lean on this truth that nothing in this world can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do you understand that he is for you and not against you? Do you understand that you have been running away from a loving God and into the hands of a deceitful devil. Do not be foolish, the devil strokes your flesh, selling your soul a lavish plate of all the things done wrong to us, all the while plotting our death. I will not tell you that it is easy to walk through a tragedy but it is harder without the comfort of a loving God. You may at this very moment be in that cone, a dark place where the light is so scary because you have made the darkness your home. You feel the fire coming, you feel the pressure of the change. The world around you is breaking, but do not be deceived into thinking that this is the end. This is your beginning and when this time of fire passes, a time of life will emerge out of death. Do not fear the light. Do not fear being planted in the soil of devastation. For our God exalts the weak, the broken, the lost, the smallest of seeds and he calls forth a mighty tree capable of growing a hundred feet tall. A tree that for two hundred years produces seed. Seeds capable of producing a forest from just one fire. He will not waste your tragedy. Will you? 


A Note From the Author:

His hands are outstretched in times of confusion. We ask the question of God that if he is good, then why didn't he stop something so bad from happening. But is our God confined by the limits of this world? Are we holding an infinite God who is the source of all life to the confinement of our selfish desires and limited understanding? Is this world the only dimension capable of His Life, His Love and His Presence? Has God abandon us to our pain? Was He not there?  At what point did He leave? Did He leave when you accused him of cruelty rather than love?

Mary and Martha lost their brother Lazarus. Martha said "If you had been here my brother would not have died" (an understanding of Jesus power yet an accusation of his goodness). Even after Jesus told Martha that her brother would be raised from death she doubted. Mary Said, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died ." (recognition of his power and a proclamation of his greatness). Same words, but each woman had a very different view of his character. After Martha spoke Jesus had words for her, a conversation, an explanation, a lesson. After Mary spoke, Jesus wept. He felt her pain, he felt her belief, he felt her reaching out to him in the midst of her tragedy. At this point Lazarus did not stay in the grave. Are we still clinging to the power of the grave long after the power of Christ has come to us? How do we ignite the power of God like Mary did? We have to look past our accusation filled pain and engage our faith. A faith that says, I know that there is power in the presence of God, especially in the midst of loss.

He wept. Our savior wept. He not only weeps for our loss but follows through with the promise of new life. What has been taken from you? Is it gone forever or is God big enough to restore? I have lost babies. I have lost hope, I have lost faith, I have lost my way many a time, I have been wronged, I have been cheated, I have been accused. But instead of letting an enemy whisper lies of God's goodness and character being faulty or anything other than perfect, I stand firm in the knowledge of God's love over us. I will be the seed that grows in adversity. I will be the mighty Pine that allowed the fire to burn off the outside so that the inside could be revealed. I am created to withstand anything in this world except for one thing.... I can not live without my Loving God right beside me. And that enemy is counting on us believing the lies of God having a tainted character so that we will not grow, so that we will not rise, and so that we will not feel God's life giving love. Do not let the fruit of your pain be the rotten fruit planted by the seeds of the enemy, these seeds are born of seclusion from God.  May the fruit that is planted in adversity be that of the Holy Spirit. For this fruit is eternal, this fruit is life, this fruit is of lasting glory.

Dear Father, I know that life is full of fire and to wage war against the only one who can carry me through it is foolishness. Forgive me for my unkind thoughts, words and untrue beliefs of you. I know you are good. I know you are love. I know that no matter what I face you will never leave me. I also know that the Devil is scared of this kind of faith in you, because to realize our place in you is realize our strength, power and potential; a power that tears down his disgusting strongholds. Right now in the name of Jesus I claim freedom for all who read these words. For all who dare to know of your great love and be forever changed I claim blessings in your name. I pray for healing, and for restoration but I also pray for abundance for those who come to you and desire to stay with you. You alone are worthy of honor and glory and we lift you up in true adoration and worship. You oh God, are worthy of our utmost devotion. I love you Lord so very much! Amen.