A pastor was talking about the early years of his marriage, and how intensely difficult they were. He and his wife were both in school full-time; she worked part-time, and he held a full-time job and preached at a small church on the weekends. They rarely slept and the stress just pummeled their relationship. They began to fight constantly, but by the power of God—and their unwillingness to quit—they stayed together.

 

They did the painful work of learning how to communicate and embrace each other’s uniqueness, and God began to work a miracle. By year four, what seemed to be a marriage headed straight for the courts, God and a ton of hard work had turned into an incredible source of joy. But those first two years marked them as a couple. They’ve always had a special place in their hearts for couples in pain, and at every church they’ve served, they’ve started groups and classes for couples traveling the same hard road they traveled.

 

At their current church, they started a marriage renewal course, with many highlights, including when one couple stood in front of the group and held up a stack of papers. They said, “These are our unsigned divorce papers. We came to this class as a last-ditch effort. In the past eight weeks, God has worked a miracle in our marriage.” Then they ripped the divorce papers in half in front of the entire class. The room erupted with applause. With that story in mind, the pastor wondered what would have happened if God had not allowed him and his wife to have such a tough time during the first two years of their married life. Would they have felt the need to start that class for hurting couples?

 

In my own life, I accompanied some students to a summer camp a few years back, and as the week went along, many of our teens began to open up and engage in deep discussions about what was happening in their lives. One young man grew emotional as he shared that he did not really know who his dad was. When I was a teenager myself, I found out that the man I thought was my dad was not my biological father. And I vividly remember the curiosity and the confusion, and even the pain of not knowing where I came from. Then, a few decades later at this camp, I was right there with a young man who was struggling through exactly what I had experienced. I could relate directly to his pain, and I was able to connect with him and offer some encouragement through the knowledge that someone else understands.

 

Jesus allows us to experience hardship and pain, and it’s for a reason. As Henri Nouwen wrote in his book, The Wounded Healer, “Who can save a child from a burning house without taking the risk of being hurt by the flames… Who can take away suffering without entering it? The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.”

 

Another way to say it is that serving others keeps us from wasting our pain. As preacher and author Brian Jones wrote, “When God allows us to go through hard times, we should not so much ask why, but who? In the mind of God, pain always has two intended recipients: us and someone else. Taking the things that we’ve experienced and finding a way to use them to help another person, is a big part of why God allows us to suffer in the first place.”

 

I would encourage you to ask, “What are some ways God might want to use what I’ve suffered to help serve other people in Jesus’ name? What have I gone through that might help someone else?” If you have endured extreme pain and suffering, could God be nudging you to find ways of helping others who have had to deal with the same horrific experiences? How can God take your pain and turn it into a blessing for others? That might be the best type of pain you can go through: the unwasted kind.

 

Troy Burns