This photo came up on my timeline a few days ago. It merits a repeat, at least in my memory. We were out for a family outing to the Pumpkin Patch in Tulsa. I saw the scarecrow and thought it would be a great photo. What I didn\u2019t see was the big stick holding him up. Of course, my ever-witty daughter who has the eye for details like her daddy did, saw the humor in the stick.
Something hilarious in the middle of a routine day. Staci remarked \u201cHmm….that’s gotta hurt!” Good news, it was just a straw scarecrow so nothing was really hurting, but what about us? At one time or another, we have all said “It hurts so much.” We really were hurting — physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually or some other way. We can even share our sad or painful story and someone might say, “That’s gotta hurt”.
But what if those “gotta hurt” times are part of God\u2019s Master Plan? I\u2019ve had plenty of those \u201cThat\u2019s gotta hurt\u201d times. There\u2019s no part of me that wants challenges, inconveniences, sorrow, or pain. That is NOT the part of my story I want to talk about. But the longer I walk with God, the more I see why His ways are so much better than mine. Picking and choosing what gets to be part of my story would keep me from the ultimate good God has in mind for me.
I know it seems hard to fathom our painful and difficult circumstances being used by God for our good, but I assure you, based on personal experiences, God has proved it to me many times over. I must warn you it might not feel good at first glance. I confess I like St. Paul\u2019s words: \u201cCount it all joy\u201d (James 1:2), until I don\u2019t. Those words are easy to pull out when my worst issue is the drive-thru leaving out something from my order. Argh! But, what about those other things we walk through \u2013 the ones that aren\u2019t here today and gone tomorrow? The ones that hurt too long. Or feel devastatingly permanent?
To slap some \u201cwe should be joyful about this\u201d on top of the hard things feels cruel. That\u2019s why I\u2019m glad \u201cCount it all joy\u201d doesn\u2019t say \u201cFEEL the joy\u201d but instead, \u201cconsider where some glimpses of joy might be even during all the hurt. We can find joy in the middle of the pain if we look for it. We can tend to all that still needs to be healed and at the same time laugh, plan for great things ahead, and declare this is a glorious day. It\u2019s living out whatever life brings us as a gift, even if it looks nothing like we thought it would. Our sorrows and frustrations tenderize our hearts. Our celebrations tend to our heart\u2019s need to get back up and go on. Let\u2019s take a deep breath and push through the pain and celebrate the birth of the \u201cbaby\u201d, rather the birth of God working in our lives for the good things He had in mind for us all along. Oh, joy! Joy! Joy!
God is working in our lives. We might as well be ready for the set-ups God has in our future. Set-ups that will inevitably be for our good. Those \u201cthat\u2019s gotta hurt\u201d times will be a part of God\u2019s \u201cFor 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.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
So we might as well grin and bear the \u201cThat\u2019s gotta hurt\u201d times, because surely \u201cAll things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.\u201d (Romans 8:28)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This photo came up on my timeline a few days ago. It merits a repeat, at least in my memory. We were out for a family outing to the Pumpkin Patch in Tulsa. I saw the scarecrow and thought it would be a great photo. What I didn\u2019t see was the big stick holding him…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22047,22044,22045,22046],"tags":[15326,1210,3315,1738,1769,22041,22042,21309,3475,22040,22039,40,271,41,16977,7117,378,7118,22043,7121],"class_list":["post-15115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hurts-so-much","category-it-hurts","category-pumpkin-patch","category-scarecrow","tag-big-stick","tag-blog","tag-celebrations","tag-challenges","tag-christian","tag-emotionally","tag-financially","tag-grin-and-bear-it","tag-hilarious","tag-hurting-physically","tag-hurts-so-much","tag-inspiration","tag-jeremiah-2911","tag-joy","tag-painful","tag-pumpkin-patch","tag-romans-828","tag-scarecrow","tag-spiritually","tag-thats-gotta-hurt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15117,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15115\/revisions\/15117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}