Blog

by Ami Samuels

Pain knows NO boundaries. It doesn’t discriminate. It isn’t reserved for the poor, it doesn’t disappear if you are a Christian, and pain knows NO racial boundaries, NO economic limitations, or NO gender confines.

Years ago when I first became a Christian, I had certain perceptions about the Christian life that were clearly wrong. I remember thinking that there was sort of a set plan for the Christian life. If you followed this plan and were “good,” then you would have a happy, pain-free life. I imagined that if I could just follow the right plan, then my life would be all sunshine and rainbows.

Shortly after my family moved to Michigan, I began to understand how wrong I had been. I remember praying to God and asking him, “Why am I experiencing such loneliness and pain? I had heard His call on my life to go, and as hard as it was to leave my family, friends, and church family, I had trusted in Him and followed Him.”

I remember thinking that if I trusted and followed God, everything would come together smoothly, and that all of the puzzle pieces of my life would fit perfectly. After all, I had obeyed and followed, right? WRONG! The Bible clearly says in Matthew 16:24, “Take up your cross and follow me.” It says in 1 Peter 1:6 that we will have all kinds of trials, and in John 16:33 that we will have tribulation.”

I do believe in a daily relationship with Jesus. Scripture instructs us to spend time in the Word of God and in prayer, and through our relationship with Jesus we will find strength, courage, and peace to face the storms of our lives. This peace doesn’t come from a life absent of trials and tribulation; it comes from an inner peace of walking with Jesus through the difficult times in our lives. Daily meeting with him and growing in the word of God, through Bible study, prayer, and sitting quietly in His presence. However, there isn’t a magic formula that we can follow by praying so many minutes a day or reading so many verses of the Bible. The more time we spend in a relationship with Him the closer we will become to Him.

We live in a fallen world. We will still face illness, tragedy, and loss. But as Christians we have the assurance that Jesus is walking with us through our good days and our worst days, and this assurances transcends all races, economic status, and social standing.

Recently, I heard a story of a little girl who had been adopted into a new family. In her new home she had two parents ready to love her, her own beautifully decorated room, and a closet full of new clothes and toys. You would think that this little girl would be happy and I’m sure she was grateful, but all of those things didn’t take away the pain that she felt leaving her biological family. There has to be a reason that a child is removed from their home. Even with the conditions being thought unfit for a child, she still missed her family, the life that she was familiar with. Pain knows NO boundaries. This little girl went from undesirable living conditions to a wonderful and loving home and she was still hurting, understandably so. I pray that this child has a relationship with Jesus and that through Him she will find courage, strength, and peace in her new home.

I think that sometimes we have a tendency to look at other people’s lives and think because they have a nice home, they have been blessed financially, they earned a college degree, or they got a new job that they don’t have problems. Everyone has struggles. Everyone!

There is a quote I like that says, “Do not judge, you don’t know what storm I’ve asked her to walk through,” – God.

When we are tempted to look around at others and wonder why their life seems perfect, it isn’t! We just don’t know what their struggles are. They have them like everyone else, we just don’t see them because pain knows NO boundaries.

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