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Don’t Hide Your Pain!

who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
2 Corinthians 1:4

To determine where you’re best suited to serve, examine these areas of past experience: 1) Family. What did you learn growing up? 2) Education. What were your favorite subjects in school? 3) Vocation. What jobs have you really excelled in and enjoyed? 4) Spiritual. What have been your most meaningful times with God? 5) Ministry. Where have you served God effectively in the past? 6) Pain. What problems, hurts, thorns and trials have you learned from? God never wastes a hurt! Your greatest ministry will often come from your greatest struggles. Who’s better qualified to help the parents of an autistic child than the parents of one? Or to help the alcoholic or addict recover than those who’ve fought the same demon and won? Or to minister to the divorced than one who’s walked through its fires? The experiences you’ve resented and regretted most are sometimes the ones God wants you to use to help others. They’re your ministry! But you must start sharing them. People are always more encouraged when we share how God’s grace helped us in our weaknesses, than when we brag about our strengths. Paul understood this truth. Listen: ‘I think you ought to know, dear brothers, about the hard time we went through in Asia. We were really crushed and overwhelmed, but that was good, for then we put everything into the hands of God, Who alone could save us. And He did, and we expect Him to do it again and again’ (2 Corinthians 1:8-10). Don’t hide your pain; use it to help others!.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, Help me to see my past experiences as things that you want to use to use me in the future. In Jesus’ Name, Amen