Turning Our Suffering into Wholeness?

How does God turn our suffering into wholeness? Can my wounded-ness produce healing and wholeness in others? How do I myself become whole? It certainly isn’t from resisting, cursing, or hating our story. I can’t remain a victim and enter into wholeness.

Grumbling about what was, will not enlighten my path to Christ. It is not that I have no empathy for the struggles of man. I have a list of my own struggles. But it isn’t like I don’t have to grapple with the story God’s written on my life…all of my life. There’s no magic wand to produce wholeness.

We’re talking about deep issues of the heart, a heart that Christ died for. And each one of us has the opportunity to follow the Spirit’s lead through our story. Accepting the unchangeable and the predetermined situations of our life is hard. But in God’s perfection, His plan is perfectly orchestrated for us. Our limitations simply become the very path leading us to Christ.

Wholeness and Empathy

What benefit can be found in the difficulties of man? One thing is, it can make us aware of our connection to humanity and empathetic to the sufferings of others. Many live in a vacuum fixated only on themselves. But in our brokenness we are given the opportunity to hurt with others too. In my experience those who are most powerful in their anointing are those who have accepted their brokenness and then receive His Life through that broken vessel.

Unless we have accepted our own suffering we have no empathy for the tragedy of mankind. I remember Martha talking about her own suffering and a dealing she had with the Father. He said, “You want to be rid of that weak little girl but this is your connection to all of humanity’s suffering. You will always minister from this broken little girl and from nowhere else.”

This impacted me a lot because often I have wanted to flee or bury my weak and broken self. I avoided it because I didn’t want to feel the pain which made the pain worse. But when Jesus took my hand and revealed Himself in and through it, He made me whole. The receiving defused the pain, while my resistance to it only increased it.

Imagine, the Lord wants to infill the very person I ignored or pretended wasn’t there. Yet with that infilling I become a source of His very Light and Life to a world broken and bruised just like me. Connecting with my brokenness helps me see others who are broken.

Refusing Suffering

I have met many who refuse their breaking and then turn out to become one who breaks. Broken people refusing to be broken and then they break others. Victims that become victimizers. Fixating on “MY” pain as a victim makes me incapable of seeing anyone but me and that wounds everyone around me.

So back to the original question is: “How does God turn our suffering into wholeness?“ It is my experience that this happens through acceptance and then receiving. Acceptance of God’s sovereign plan in it all and then receiving His Life pouring through that broken life. Wholeness comes as I touch the Person who is WHOLE. Then it continues by letting the Person of Wholeness come through me to make others whole too. I become a wholeness conduit and the process makes me whole.

No, this is not something we can do off-roading on our own, it is a deep work of the Spirit. He prepares our heart and then performs the Life—wholeness is the result.