Daily Devotional – 1/12/17 “Thankful for my pain!”

There was a young man who dated this young lady. He loved her, opened his home to her and tried to give her the world. He thought they would be together, especially after the baby but she had other plans. She didn’t want to be a kept woman because she wanted to run the streets. She took his child and he had the hardest time seeing and even speaking to her. Then one day, she showed up on his doorstep with the baby and her bag. See, the guy she’d left him for opened the door to an addiction, he knew nothing about and it turned her out. And she looked bad, barely recognizable. When she tried to come in, he stopped her, taking his daughter from her arms and the bag. Yet before closing the door, he told her two things; I forgive you and thank you. She asked why he was thanking her and he said, “You leaving opened the door for me to see the wife who’d been waiting all this time.”

For whoever you are reading this, stop cursing all the pain, heartache, let downs, break ups and broken promises you’ve endured. Stop focusing on the ruined relationships, failed agreements and shattered trust. Instead, thank them. Yes ma’am, yes sir; thank everybody who has ever let you down. Tell the person who walked out on you how appreciative you are because now you see all the problems you would have inherited. Tell the job who laid you off just how thankful you are since it was because of them you started your own business. Tell that daddy who never kept a promise, you forgive them because his neglect taught you how to be a strong mother or father. Tell that momma who never had anything good to say, thank you because it pushed you to be greater than even you thought. Tell that congregation who didn’t see the value in your anointing, thanks because it shifted you to starting your own ministry and God has been blowing your mind! Tell the pain, thank you because it showed you how strong you are. Beloved when you can get to a point, in faith, where you can thank the past, it is then you’ll be ready to step into the fullness of your present. Then you can declare like David in Psalm 119:71, “My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees.”