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is this for you?
Jack Nicolson put it brilliantly in the road-trip scene from the 1999 movie As Good As It Gets:
Not everyone has a terrible story to get over. Some people have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad.
If you're riding with me, know that I speak from personal experience. If you can relate, scroll down. More than anything I want you to know, YOU matter to God. IT--whatever it is, matters to God. But no one can make that discovery for you. I count it a blessing to encourage you along the way.
the story behind the category selctions
We're Not Alone
As I sat in silence, God revealed a facet of the cross I had never seen before.
When Christ was crucified, He not only paid the price for the sinful nature we were born with, He took on every sinful act that would ever be committed. That includes child sexual abuse. I was one survivor of many. He felt my abuse and everyone else's all at once.
As He hung on the cross, He became an innocent child and felt every slap, every intrusion, every terror. He became the woman whose husband left her and chose cocaine to be his wife. He knew broken dreams, disappointments, and failures. He was betrayed by a loved one. He became the parents who lost their child due to illness, abduction, or senseless murder. He was the boy who was never good enough in the eye's of his earthly father. Jesus felt every painful experience each one of us would go through on this earth.
The most brutal act of physical torture in history only reveals in part what Christ suffered for us. He knows the pain of waiting on God for promised transformation.
He bore the pain of the abused and the punishment of the abuser. There is nothing we go through that Jesus doesn't understand. I found comfort in that.
I believe recovery programs are so popular these days because we long for someone we can identify with when we're bleeding. I can't think of anyone better than Christ. My childhood passed through His wounded hands; there is hope for me.
I'm not alone and neither are you...I knew that in His strength, I would get to the other side of my pain. I was in a relationship with Someone who knew my pain and my freedom long before I did. My weary soul found the rest it needed to go on in truth.
"If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8: 31-32 NKJV)
Christ gave me more than just the ability to get through that day. He lit the way for all my days.
I don't know what you're circumstances are, but don't give up. Don't give up on God and the hope of promised transformation. You can and will get to the other side of your pain. It's the truth, His truth, that sets us free.
copyright 2009
The Jonah Chronicles
Published on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 @ 9:23 AM CDT
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