Today's Devotional Thought
February 06, 2012 by Rachel Piferi
Using the Pain
Yesterday was a weird day for me, full of memories and reflection. You see, on February 5th of 2008, I got the devastating news that our unborn baby had countless problems that would mean that she would not live when she was born.
Yesterday was particularly weird because in 2008, I remember watching the Super Bowl with friends just two days before our ultrasound. I was actually in Dallas on a business trip. I can remember the hotel ballroom like it was yesterday. The hotel was showing the game on a big screen and we sat around laughing and cheering as the Giants played the Patriots. I am not sure if you all remember that game, but Eli won it at the end in dramatic fashion. It was a great game.
Very much like yesterday's game.
At halftime of the 2008 game, I can remember talking with my friend about the upcoming ultrasound. I had already had one ultrasound and the doctors were being very secretive. They had scheduled a second to see what was going on and I think I knew down deep in my soul that something wasn't right. She assured me that everything was going to be fine.
But everything wasn't fine.
As I sat there yesterday watching the Giants and Patriots play in another Super Bowl where Eli wins it at the end, the memories came flooding back. The hotel. The anxiety. The support from friends. The devastating news. The decisions we had to make. The waiting.
At certain moments yesterday, it was a bit too much for me to take. Tears have flowed this weekend as I have thought about it.
I know you would think that the miracle would take away the pain of the pregnancy, but it doesn't. Those four months are very real and very powerful still.
I am glad those four months are still very real.
And, I hope they stay that way.
You see, as much as my heart hurt yesterday (and girlfriends, it hurt badly), I wouldn't trade the experience or the memories for anything. Because, it is the memory of that event that allows me to understand what others may be going through in their own period of waiting or uncertainty. It is my own pain that allows me to help others when they are in pain.
Our struggles in life. Our pain. Our disappointments. Our failures. Our weakest moments are exactly the moments of our lives that God will use to help others. It is those parts of our stories that allow us to look at someone else and say, "I know exactly what you are going through." It is those moments that we will use years later to show someone else how Jesus carried us through. It is those moments of pain that God can use for his glory by helping someone else when they are in pain.
I do not like pain or heartache. But knowing that God wants to use it to help other people understand him more helps me accept it better. The truth of the matter is we have been promised pain in this lifetime. It is going to come.
But sweet sisters, we have also been promised that God will use it all for good.
I am seeing that with Isabella's story.
And when the Giants play the Patriots, I always think of it.
Yesterday was hard. But, I thank God that I serve a God that does not let our pain be for nothing. He loves us so much that he even wants our hardships and our pain to be worth something. I am so valuable to him that he doesn't want me to go through anything that won't have real purpose and use. It still hurts. But, he wants to use it. And, I have found that, in his infinite wisdom, it is God using my pain for good that has led to much of my healing in different circumstances. Using my pain to help someone else makes me feel like it was worth something.
Oh sweet friends, there is no better feeling than being used by God. And I thank him every day that he can take the bad parts of life and use them to help someone else.
That's just amazing to me.
And that's how much he loves us.
December