"i invite YOU in": the FALLING of PAIN

And the snow keeps on falling, like the pain does from my mind to my heart. I think about this particular month six years ago and those memories in mind trickle down to the chambers of my heart. It’s a slow fall, similar to snow fall, but its landing isn’t as soft. You see, the prison of pain that pushes with passion hits me harder than “the story” that I tell about the pain. I go around and share my story to audiences of all ages and backgrounds,  and while my words attempt to explain it, they will never do the justice of what it feels like living it.  That’s hard pain. That’s holding pain. It hits me hard and holds me like a prison. However, this prison is the stabilization of my liberty. It keeps me guarded from complacency.And this isn’t me suffering depressingly from the pain that I feel. Rather this is me suffering successfully because pain is still pain even after it heals. And I have been healed from my past, because like the snowfall of late, God’s forgiveness has covered my fall—“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). The moral of this weather report is that pain channeled usually ignites passion.  And that’s why I share “my story” at schools, churches, and events,  that Gods redemption in my life may spark the same in someone else’s life. It’s not me, but God’s grace that works with me. It’s His divine sovereignty that brings beauty from ashes, but it is our human responsibility to give Him our ashes to be redeemed as beauty. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).  It’s not enough to just “know” that He will work all things together for good, but I must take my hands off “all things” so that He can re-work them as good.  To truly know is to truly let go. And this is why I share the falling of pain, because by the time it leaves my mouth in word form, it becomes the calm after the storm.