I was recently at a women’s conference at our church which really filled my cup. It was wonderful just to spend time in fellowship with like-minded women who love Jesus. My favorite was the moments of worship where we all were together in one big room with music, singing, and praising God. I closed my eyes and all I could think about was how pleased God must feel looking down upon His kingdom daughters who were gathered together to worship Him; it was just so beautiful, and so good. The conference was called Made New, and it reminded me of so many good things of the Lord. It reminded me of why I became a certified Christian life coach in the first place, and it reminded me of how important it is to keep sowing seeds in the hearts and minds of you, the listeners. It also reminded me of how things sometimes take time to grow but how the seeds that are planted will eventually produce fruit, and how it will all point back to God and bring Him glory, which is why this podcast was ever started in the first place.
Even though I’m in a new season over here with homeschool, and we’ve incorporated a lot of the homeschooling that we’re doing here on the podcast, I actually want to go back to the basics with you today. I want to really bring you a few episodes where we talk about life breakthrough, about God’s goodness, and all the good things that He has for you. So whatever season you’re in right now, whatever struggle you might be walking through right now, whether you’re dealing with financial issues, chronic pain, or a situation with your kids or your spouse, maybe your marriage is in a dark place right now, or whether you’re walking through a season of grief, or a secret addiction that you’re holding onto and hiding or shame or some kind of big life change, or especially if you’re in this place of replaying past hurts or trauma over and over and over in your mind, then I want to meet you where you are today, and really help you move forward.
How to Start Healing
So, let’s start by talking about how to start the process of healing from the past pain that’s in your life. First things first, we have to start with the understanding or the illustration that your heart and your mind are like soil. Your heart and your mind are substance or matter for things to be planted in. So the beliefs that you hold are seeds that have been planted in your heart and in your mind, things that you’ve experienced, and truths that you hear are things that have been planted in your soil. A lot of those things have or are going to take root and grow in your life, they’re going to produce fruit, whether it’s good or whether it’s bad.
Let me share a story with you to illustrate this concept of your heart and your mind being like soil. I live in the Midwest, so it’s all about farming over here, and for as long as I can remember growing up as a little girl, the crops on my grandpa and grandma’s Missouri farm, they looked pristine, every single growing season. I remember driving by their farm every Fourth of July, and there would just be these rows and rows of dark green, beautiful corn. It was always lined up in perfectly straight rows, and by the Fourth of July, it was always over knee-high. That’s a big thing, they want it knee-high by the Fourth of July.
I remember I would always tell my grandpa Jim how awesome his corn looked, and I just remember him smiling from ear to ear because he worked so hard to make sure that he would be growing that top-notch corn. And he knew how to grow such high-yielding, good-looking corn crop because he understood the most important part of farming, and that is preparing and tending to the soil in which the seed would be planted. Every spring grandpa would go out and he would prepare the soil for the season ahead. He’d pick it up and he’d run that soil through his fingers, and he would make sure that it was prepared just right for the seed that would be planted that year. And he’d continue to tend to his crop throughout the growing season. And then every single fall when it came time for harvest, my grandpa’s corn crop would be plentiful year after year after year. And it makes sense, right? Because the condition of the soil in which the seeds were planted is super important.
The thing is that some farmers, even if they know the importance of preparing and tending to the soil, some farmers choose not to do it or not to do it as meticulously as my grandpa always did. And unfortunately, this means that they may end up with a crop that’s less than when in contrast, they could have had an abundant harvest at the end of their growing season.
This reminds me of Jesus teaching about the parable of the sower in Mark 4:3-9 and 14-20. It says, “Consider the sower who went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil and it grew up quickly since the soil wasn’t deep. When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns came up and choked it and it didn’t produce fruit. Still, other seed fell on good ground and it grew up producing fruit that increased 30, 60 and 100 times. Then Jesus said, Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”
Later Jesus says, “The sower sows the Word. Some are like the word sown on the path when they hear immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them, and others are like seeds sown on rocky ground. When they hear the word immediately, they receive it with joy, but they have no root, they are short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the world, they immediately fall away. Others are like seeds sown among thorns. These are the ones who hear the word but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. And those like seeds sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it and produce fruit 30, 60 and 100 times what was sown.”
What does this mean? It means that in our lives, our hearts and our minds, it’s soil, and that soil holds great power. When the soil is good, when it’s prepared correctly, it will produce a plentiful crop of good fruit. So, quick check friend, how is your soil? Is it fertile ground, ready for seeds of truth to take root and produce fruit? If it’s not fertile ground, then I encourage you to carve out some time to sit with the Lord and ask Him to help you tend to your soil. Ask Him to keep your heart soft and your mind teachable. This is a great starting point when you’re looking for life breakthrough or when you’re looking to grow deeper in relationship with God. You start with the soil, so that you have fertile ground in which for seeds of truth to be planted, to take root, to grow, and to produce fruit.
God is with you in your pain
The next thing is that you need to know that God actually cares. God cares about your heart and your mind. He cares about your healing; He sees your pain. In fact, He’s with you in your pain. Let me tell you about someone in the Bible who experienced pain on a really deep level, someone who felt alone, someone who felt shame, someone who from the outside looking in something really bad happened to her. That person is Hager. We talked about Hager at the Women’s Conference, and although I knew her story, it struck me in a new and different way, as I realized that God really cared about her pain. And He called her by name in the midst of her pain. Early in the Bible, God promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have a baby. But Sarah got impatient, and so she forced her Egyptian servant Hagar to sleep with her husband Abraham, basically hoping to take God’s plan into her own hands and her own timing. I cannot imagine how that had to feel for Hager, like she was completely being used. Hagar became pregnant, and then there was major friction between Sarah and Hager. Sarah got jealous and treated Hager so badly that Hager ran away. Can you imagine the pain that Hager had to be feeling, the loneliness and the shame around all of that?
But then the Bible says in Genesis 16, “The angel of the Lord found her by a spring in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shure and he said, Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” Did you catch that? The Lord came to her and He called her by name, he cared about her. Hagar replied, “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai. The angel of the Lord said to her, go back to your mistress and submit to her authority. The angel of the Lord said to her, I will greatly multiply your offspring and they will be too many to count. The angel of the Lord said to her, you have conceived and will have a son. You will name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction.”
God then sends Hager back to submit to authority, which is a lesson all in itself, but He sends her back, and He blesses her for doing so, for being obedient. And He tells her He will greatly multiply her offspring and they will be too many to count. That was a big deal back in those days, to have children was to have blessing. It was considered extreme blessing and it still is extreme blessing. Unfortunately, it’s just sometimes viewed differently in our modern world. But what we can take from this story is that God came to Hager, He saw her, He called her by name, and He blessed her in her pain. Verse 13, goes on to say, “So she named the Lord who spoke to her Beer Lahai Roi for she said in this place, I have actually seen the one who sees me.” Hager saw the one who saw her in her pain. Friend, God sees you in your pain and He calls you by name too. He sees you in your pain and He is there with you.
Pain has a Purpose
The last thing I want to share with you today is that your pain has a purpose; your past pain had and has a purpose. You see, the painful times are what refine you. The pain is what causes you to grow. If you’re someone who has ever questioned or who does question, why does God even allow there to be pain? Then I want you to go back and listen through episode number 100. In Episode 100, I shared my daughter Chloe’s story about her journey, and our family’s journey of navigating scoliosis. Chloe was diagnosed with scoliosis when she was 13, and she underwent a major spinal fusion in her back. And God showed us so many incredible things in that season, and through Chloe’s story and through her pain. So be sure and take a listen to that if you haven’t already checked that out.
That season truly was one of the most painful experiences in our family’s life, like mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and certainly physically for Chloe. But friend, God showed us through that experience that there is goodness, and there is growth in the pain. There’s a concept that I call the Mount blessing objective which is this idea that everyone is striving to be in a season of blessing all the time. Like we want to work so hard to just remain in a season of life where things are going great, and where we feel so #blessed, right? The problem is the other seasons, when it comes to the mount blessing objective. So in your mind, I want you to picture a mountain, like a side profile, I want you to picture at the top of the mountain right after the peak, you see this flat area. It’s a plateau and the plateau represents your comfort zone. And then beyond the plateau, I want you to picture a gigantic drop off that falls into a deep, deep valley down below. The valley represents the pain, the hard times, the tough lessons to be learned. And then after the valley, I want you to picture a slow and steady upward-sloping hill. The hill represents what I call the hill of growth. And it comes after you’ve learned a really hard lesson, it’s you in a season of growing, it’s you climbing back up to the top of the mountain, to the peak of Mount blessing. So it’s like a cycle; you’ve got the top of Mount blessing, the peak, the season of just feeling so #blessed. And then you get to the plateau where you’re feeling all super comfortable, like things are going okay, everything’s fine, just kind of getting through each day. Suddenly, you look around and you start feeling dissatisfied. And then you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m coming up on the danger zone and you find your toes hanging over the edge of the plateau, and you’re looking at this deep, deep valley down below your feet, and you lean forward and bam, there you go, tumbling down into this deep, deep valley. It’s like a pit, and there’s pain there and there are hard lessons to be learned there. But you find yourself learning lessons and you find yourself on your knees crying out to God and actually getting still and quiet and listening for His voice. And it’s actually good. It’s so good because as He starts speaking to your heart and to your mind and you begin to listen and learn the lessons that He has for you, then you begin to climb up the hill of growth slowly, steadily, once again to the peak of Mount blessing.
When you think of that, what comes up for you? Where do you want to be in that illustration? Do you notice how the growth, the best stuff, maybe even better than the season of blessing, how it happens on the hill of growth after a season of pain? There is purpose and growth in your pain and in the pain of your past. I find that revelation both hard and so, so beautiful and eye-opening.
During the women’s conference, I was reminded that when we strip it all away, all the stuff, all the busyness, all the seasons of our lives, that it comes down to this: God loves us, He loves you. And He cares about you, and He wants to help you grow. He wants to use you to help others grow. God wants to tend to the soil of your heart and mind, and He wants to use you to plant good seeds in the soil of others. He wants you to know that He sees you, that He loves you, that He cares about you, and that He is with you. Your heavenly Father wants you to know that there is a purpose in your pain. And there’s a purpose in your past. And that these are the things that truly matter. Friend, God cares about your heart, He cares about your mind, and He cares about your healing. He calls you by name.
If you want to go deeper on this, I want to invite you to check out my free workshop, How to Achieve a Life Breakthrough (when you don’t even know where to start). We’re going to talk about what we talked about today, and so much more.
