My wife is allergic to poison ivy like its nobody’s business. She’s almost like a poison ivy magnet to the point that she doesn’t even have to come into contact with it. If it’s in the air she breathes, she’s bound to get it. And it’s no fun when she does, cause if “Momma ain’t happy…” well, you know the rest.
Now, me, on the other hand, am almost the complete opposite. I’ve walked through poison ivy, I’ve worked in poison ivy, and I’ve even thrown clothes away after coming in contact with poison ivy to prevent my wife from getting it. But for as long as I can remember, I have never had poison ivy. Not even once… until recently.
It happened…
We live out in the country, and a few weeks ago I did some weed work around our yard. Sure, there was a little poison ivy in the mix, but nothing I hadn’t boldly faced and conquered ‘like a man’ before. But for some reason, things were different this time. I not only got poison ivy, it crawled up both of my legs and the inside of my arms.
And for the first time in like, forever, I had to experience the annoying pain and discomfort of “the itch”. You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s real. It’s everywhere. It’s relentless.
I always watched my wife and her discomfort with poison ivy, and I couldn’t fully understand her pain, but now that I had it myself, I was a big baby (like most of us men) when it came to discomfort. Waking up first thing in the morning to, itching… waking up in the middle of the night, itching… going throughout the day trying so hard to resist “the itch”. At times it was almost more than I thought I could handle.
And now, for the first time in years, I can actually relate to my wife’s pain… not just sympathetically, but empathetically. I now know what she is feeling, and I feel for her. I kind of wonder if God didn’t let me get poison ivy just once after all these years, just to teach me how to better love my wife. (Very funny, Lord.) Well, it worked.
I feel your pain… or do I?…
But isn’t that the way it often is in life? It’s easy to tell someone, “I feel your pain” when in reality, we don’t. It’s easy to pray for someone who is going through something tough, but it’s so much easier to pray for them when you’ve gone through that ’something tough’ yourself.
I don’t know what God has allowed you to go through in your life, or maybe even recently, whether it’s something uncomfortable, or something downright painful (in your family, in your finances, in your health, etc.) but whatever it is, God didn’t allow you to go through it so so that you could keep it to yourself. And He certainly didn’t just allow you to face it so that you could fake it.
Your pain, His purpose…
He may just have allowed you to experience your pain so that He can accomplish His purpose of using you to help someone else.
God doesn’t waste a trial, so neither should you. And He didn’t give you a story for it to remain untold.
Why? Because someone else needs your story, your trial, or your pain to help them get through theirs. In fact, they might just need your story in order to become a part of His story.
And God has chosen to entrust it to you on the front end so that He could encourage or reach them through it on the other end.
Philippians 1:12 But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.
I Corinthians 1:4 Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble.
What have you gone through in your life, your marriage, your family, that God could use to help someone else? Whatever it is, don’t waste it on yourself. Share it. 🙂
