Glory in Our Sufferings

Scriptures: Genesis 41:52, Isaiah 9:6

Trusting God in Our Healing:

I am grateful that God loves us too much to leave us as he found us. I found myself strong in trusting God in all areas of my life until he revealed one part into which I hadn’t dived — healing from my past trauma. For the past few years, I found myself comfortable with my over-excess of weight. I liked being invisible, not seen, and being in the background. It was my place of safety and comfort. Until one day, God convicted me and gently told me that I was still living in the bondage of fear. I made a home in the grave that he already called me out of. While in therapy, I learned that because of 12 years of abuse, I subconsciously gained weight to protect myself from unwanted attention, especially from men. God whispered and said: “You are still living in bondage of fear, I command you to come out of that grave and embrace the full life of freedom that I want to give you.” Over time, I had help creating a health plan and going to the gym. God had to teach me how to feel safe in my body and look at myself through his lens. I found myself questioning why God let these things happen to me. He took me to the book of Genesis, the story of Joseph, who was sold into slavery by the people who were supposed to love and protect him, his own family. This story speaks so personally to me as I was sold into sex trafficking by my biological mother. I read all the trials Joseph endured, and at every hardship, God was there with Joseph at his side. Joseph found favor with every ruler, prison guard, and pharaoh! Years and years passed before he saw God’s promise, and when he finally did, he honored God. Genesis 41: 52 states, “The second son he named Ephriam and said, ‘It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.’” This made me hopeful that God will make us fruitful in our suffering. 

God is not afraid of our questions or any emotions. He will always meet you right where you are with grace, ready to receive you and lead you. He is our personal and wonderful mighty counselor who knows exactly what you need to walk out of that healing in your life. Let go and trust God!

Scriptures: Hebrews 4:16, Psalms 119:114, Psalms 63:1

How To Deal With Trauma Triggers:

What is your reaction when you are afraid?

In this period of time, I lost 26 pounds, and my pants were beginning to feel loose. For the first time, I had to wear a belt to keep my pants from falling. I was so proud of myself! On this day, I was in my class and got up to use the bathroom. I went into the stall, took off my belt, and froze in fear. The sound of the belt triggered me: my heart was racing, and I felt hot and afraid. From years of abuse, the sound of the belt would be the one I dreaded the most. Immediately I cried to God, “ Abba, I’m scared!” God met me right then and there, and I let his rod and staff comfort me. God erased that trigger right away, and from that day forward, I no longer had that trigger. I was amazed at how quickly God responded. He was with me when I was afraid, he comforted me, and he protected me. 

The amygdala is located in the medial temporal lobe, where our flight, fight, or freeze response kicks in, especially during trauma. Aren’t you grateful that God gave us that part of our brain? It is IMPORTANT to know which one you are. Why? Because this will determine how you react and handle situations when they come your way, especially during this healing journey. We must know what our weaknesses are so we know how to fight the enemy back! 

For example, if you are a: 

Fighter: You need to get on your knees and pray immediately. 

Hebrews 4:16: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” 

Runner: Run to God! His presence is your shelter and refuge of strength! 

Psalms 119:114: “You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word.” 

Freeze: Turn on your worship music and praise him, cry to him, yell at him, do whatever you need to do to worship. Let the holy spirit take over your mind and comfort you. 

Psalm 63:1: “You, God are my God; earnestly I seek you; I thirst for yours, my whole being longs for your, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.

Scriptures: Joshua 1:9, 2 Corinthians 12:8-10, Romans 5:1-4

Grace Towards Ourselves: 

I found myself frustrated trying to heal 12 years of deep-rooted, complex trauma in 1 therapy session. It was unrealistic! My therapist reminded me that I needed to be patient and have grace toward myself. Healing is not an overnight process. You will have good days and bad days. If our mighty and heavenly father can extend that same grace to us, why can we not give it to ourselves, too? I am grateful that we don’t have to do it alone! When Jesus departed the earth after he rose from the grave, he sent a “helper” to us called the holy spirit. I surrendered fully to God and let the lord of my life have his way with me, no matter what it looked like or how I felt. God is worthy of our praise always. In my weakest moments, God reminded me that his grace was sufficient for me. In2 Corinthians 12: 8-10, Paul talks about this at great length! “Three times, I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, THEN I am strong.” This is so encouraging! Keep moving forward; we may be pressed on all sides, but we are not crushed! 

God is for us and not against us. There is glory in our sufferings! It says it here, in Romans 5: 1-4, “Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope.” 

Prayer for you: Dear Heavenly Father, I am grateful for the person on the other side of the screen who is reading this. Abba, thank you for giving them the courage to read this devotional and take steps into healing with you. Lord, you know exactly where they are, I pray that you meet them right there and let a fresh wind of heaven breathe upon them. We believe that your word is alive; remind us of what you spoke to us already when we need it the most. May their hearts and minds be transformed by you in the way you see best. On the bad days, may they stop being harsh with themselves and instead remind themselves to be graceful and patient. Please place the right people and resources they need to successfully move forward. I lift this up in your mighty name, amen.

Scriptures: Psalms 25:16-18, Psalms 37:23-24

How To Accept God’s Truth Over Our Lives: 

I want you to imagine someone you love dearly with all of your heart and that someone loving you back. Now, with that person in mind, imagine that they prepare this gift for you. They take the time to shop and pick out something you need, they wrap it up in this beautiful box with your favorite color, and it’s waiting to be opened. This person excitedly gives you the gift, but you reject it because you feel like you don’t deserve this gift. God feels rejected when we don’t receive his truth over who he says we are. I know that God has wanted me to accept his biblical truth over my life: I am fearfully & wonderfully made, that I am worthy, that I am righteous, and that I am the daughter of the highest king. The enemy used my pain, brokenness, and trauma to tell me my worth, and I was deceived enough to believe it. I rejected God’s gift again and again. I remember one particular day, I was crying and telling God how I let the amount of money a man paid for me when my biological mother sold me define my worth. That dollar sign was held over my head for so many years. God, in a gentle and loving whisper, said, “My beloved & precious daughter, I sent my one and only son to pay the highest price already. I wanted to be close to you. No man of flesh could ever outbuy that. You are worth plentiful to me.” Our feelings at the moment can be deceitful and wavering. If your feelings contradict what the bible says about you, then your feelings are lying. God’s truth remains God’s truth despite how you feel. 

I want to talk about redemption and restoration. For a long time, I believed that I was less worthy because of the years of abuse my body endured. I was courageous enough to reach out to wear the robe of righteousness that God made for me, but inside, I felt robbed. The enemy came to steal, lie, kill, and destroy. The devil had me believing that he won by stealing my innocence as a child, but my mighty God reminded me that he redeems, heals, and restores. The enemy never wins, ever!

Scripture: Isaiah 49:14-15

Our Identity in Christ: 

I struggled with my identity in Christ for a long time. I was raised by a broken mother who repeated generational curses. I had no healthy adult in my life to love, encourage, support, and do all the things a child needs. Because I had a broken relationship with my biological mother and didn’t know my biological father, I found it difficult to know how to have a relationship with my heavenly father. I found it difficult to trust God when my earthly parents couldn’t protect and love me, so why would I believe that God would? Over time, God’s faithfulness and goodness found me again and again. I let God hold my hand and guide me in baby steps that led me to trust him. Over the years, I embraced him as my heavenly father. I immensely longed to have a “mother,” and in the end, I felt abandoned. One day, I cried to God about this, and he took me to the verse Isaiah 49: 14-15: “But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.’” The verse continues, “‘Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you.’” God has shown me that I was made in innocence long before I was in my mother’s womb. He created me for his goodness! He has had his hand over my life long before I took my first breath. I am thankful that God continues to hold our hand even when we let go. Reader, you are God’s precious son and daughter. Your identity is found in him, not in your sin, brokenness, or the deceiving lies of the enemy. He loves you so much!

Scriptures: Luke 10:19, James 4:7

How To Walk in Authority Over the Enemy:

Luke 10: 19: “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.”

You have the authority through the holy spirit to overcome the enemy! After Jesus’ resurrection, he departed from this earth to send a “helper” for us: the holy spirit. Stop letting your fear, depression, and anxiety speak over you! Preach louder in faith and biblical truth to those things! Our feelings are deceitful, and if they don’t match what the bible says, they are simply not true! 

James 4:7: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

I know that I personally have let my feelings run far and wide which has led to fear, and I end up paralyzed in depression and anxiety. When I hear even the smallest lie of the enemy, I capture that thought and rebuke it with God’s truth. For example, when I began to worry about what my life would look like in the future, I remembered that God says, in Jeremiah 29:11, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Trust God today because he already has prepared the way for tomorrow! 

I walk in godly confidence, knowing that God has already equipped me with everything I need to fight back against the enemy. Walk victoriously, for our God has already won the battle!

Scriptures: Luke 23:34, Isaiah 53:5

Forgiveness: 

I know this one is hard to even read, let alone do. I challenge you to read on. You have made it this far; you can do this! I know there are some of you who carry around baggage that includes hurt, betrayal, anger, loss, and grief from what people have done to you. Trust me, I know that you feel justified in your anger, but what you don’t realize is that those things are debilitating you from moving forward with God. Those things are hindering your walk with God. You cannot move forward and still carry the past with you. Let your mind and your heart be transformed and renewed by him! I will speak this next revelation with such authority that I know set me free from that mindset, and I know God wants to set you free, too. As you can imagine, I was in every way justified in my anger toward many people and many things. 

At some point, you have to let what Jesus did on the cross for you be bigger than what someone did to you.

I have to let what Jesus did on the cross for me be bigger than what my abusers did to me. One night, I was exhausted and decided to take a drive and worship in my car. On my way back home, the lord challenged me and put it on my heart to forgive all those who had hurt me. I pulled over because I knew this one was going to be a hard one. He had me name each abuser by name and forgive them one by one, from the beginning at age five until the very end. For example, it was: “I forgive __________ for doing __________ to me.” It was extremely hard, and when it got to the part of forgiving the men who had purchased me, I was bawling. Afterward, my soul felt lighter, I didn’t realize the weight I was carrying until God asked me to put it down. 

Jesus was a perfect, sinless half-man and half-God. He took all our sins and transgressions and endured the most unimaginable painful death. The flesh on his back was torn wide open by 40 whip lashes. 39 was enough to kill a man. Then he carried a heavy cross, all while being bruised and hurt. On that very cross, he was nailed by his hands and his feet. A crown of thorns on his head, his blood poured out for you and me. The guards that were assigned to torture him spat on him and made fun of Jesus. How did Jesus respond to this? 

Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Forgiveness does not mean that we have to trust someone again. It just means that we can’t hold grudges because, essentially, it’s like poison in our hearts. God has called us to live a life of freedom and not anger or bitterness. 

You made it to the end! I pray that you were able to use these bible verses and tools to walk in freedom, joy, and peace.