Pain is a Refiner

Are you in the middle of a painful period of loss? Are you wondering how you will make it through yet another setback? Yet another trial? 

Listen to this episode with Tammy Toney-Butler, Healing Evangelist, and be inspired, stirred, and empowered as you walk along the pathway of the recovery process, guided by the lens of faith. 

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Transcript

Welcome to Reflective Hour with Tammy Toney-Butler. I'm your host, but we all know who the host of this show is, and that's Christ. Let us gather together today and process pain and loss. Pain is a refiner. Holy Spirit, help us. Help us to process this word, to stay to the end of it, to have the strength and the courage to change after we receive it. Oh God, enlighten us to your truth. Show us the way along that path of righteousness. For your name's sake, guide us into all truth. Oh, guide us into all truth. Let your spirit be with us, holding us as we digest this word and draw strength from it as we shed yet another layer along the pathway of healing. Oh God, we call upon you. Lord Jesus, help us. In your mighty name we pray. Amen. It's in the times of greatest loss you become become all God has for you. When you embrace the change instead of running from it or trying to pray it away, you open the door to something new. Often after a loss, we seek to immediately fill the void with a replacement of the item or person lost only to realize we needed to feel the pain of the loss. Pain drives us to seek answers. Take a spiritual inventory, seek God, and say, "Father, Adonai, what will this loss teach me? How can I use it for good? I know you're bringing something new. Help me to wait on it and your timing. Help me to instead of seeking a synthetic alternative to plate the pain and agony of the deep wound left behind. Instead, let me seek you and only you, oh God. The ache in your heart after the loss will lead you to a purposeful place of peace if you partner with it instead of running from it. Embracing the loss, drawing from God's strength and wisdom, leaning on his understanding and not your own will bring you to a place of peace in the middle of the storm of loss. When a loved one dies, a relationship breaks up, or a door closes, we can immediately feel rejected, lost, afraid, and so many other things. The weight in our heart threatens to consume us as we look in an empty bedroom, an empty stall, an empty closet. But we must pers persevere through the pain and get to the other side. As we get to the other side, we can process the loss with a clear vision and not settle for a synthetic fake alternative to God's ultimate plan and design for our lives. In the place of pain, we call out to God and truly listen to what he is saying. We humble ourselves and ask hard questions and accept hard truth. Is my ministry on the right track? My marriage, am I being freed up for something new? Or is the pain from this law saving me from destruction? from a much bigger loss later that would devastate me. A loss where I invested my whole heart, time, and resources only to realize I was walking through a door never opened but I forced open or the enemy opened. My destiny would be delayed or destroyed

if I didn't stop and take a spiritual inventory and see why the loss, where the detour, where the delay. When you stop, let the pain come, but immediately refuse to let it destroy you or thwart your kingdom purpose. Then the devil loses his grip on you and you finally break free. No longer manipulated or controlled, but free. You experience breakthrough because you realize you are going to be okay despite the loss, the breakup, the change of plans, or the change in the way you thought something was going to be. As trauma survivors, we can hold on to things that no longer serve us because the pain of the loss hurts so much our hearts are breaking and we will do anything to stop the negative onslaught of raw emotions that accompany it. Instead of recognizing, wow, this hurts, and calling out to God to help, we try to change the narrative. We shop and buy material possessions, things that mean nothing, only to realize the ache is still there, the need still there. We can accept a partnership that no longer serves us and brings us to a worse place of pain and turmoil because we did not seek God and ask some very hard questions and wait on his answers. Yes, some questions have no answers and loss is out of your control. But you can control how you face the loss, the pain. You can embrace it and let it change you, mold you like the potter and the clay. Or you can resist getting to the root of the pain and breaking free of old mindsets that no longer serve you. You are stronger than you think. The place of pain is actually a birthing room of purpose, a birthing room of promise. Embrace the loss. Call out to God to help you stay strong during the recovery process and keep moving forward on this path of life that can often be paved with adversity. Stay strong. Stay focused. Practice the pause. Let the pain settle in and worship your way through it. Praise your way through it to joy and to peace. Then in the peaceful surrendered place of obedience, process the pain and birth something new. Whether it's a ministry, a relationship, a book, a new pregnancy, or a realization that you actually do not even need a replacement. What was in your life that you lost was never part of God's plan for your life. And in the letting go, you actually become. You become a new creature, a new creation in Christ Jesus. And the old is gone. The new is here. And you are strong, victorious, and ready for the new thing God has waiting for you. For he gives us exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask, think, or imagine. pain. Loss stops us, forces us to be still and let go of what no longer serves us. Some losses, like the loss of a child, the death of a loved one by suicide cannot be explained. But you will come out on the other side of the pain. And your testimony of triumph despite the devastating loss will be someone else's lifeline later. A lifeline tethered to hope and joy and life after loss. Never gone from your heart, but tucked away until you see that loved one again in heaven. Not destroy, but refined. The refiner's fire is hard, but trust the process. Trust God. He will see you through to the other side of this loss. Trust God. Draw from his strength, his wellspring of living water that never runs dry. Renew your strength in him in the promises found in his word. And know he will never never leave you nor forsake you. Go in peace. Be strong. Be delivered this day. Rise up victorious and tell your story to the world. Glory be to Jesus. Glory be to Jesus. Glory be to Jesus.