The Pain of Shattered Dreams

How you handle these fragile moments is key to the remainder of your life. It’s ok to feel abandoned or alone. It’s ok to be depressed.

But let God know about where you’re at. I’m convinced He really wants to teach you to walk in the truth. And dear one, nothing will be as challenging as that.

I really hope that these thoughts might help. There is no question that we’ll face challenges and difficulties. Just maybe this post will strengthen your walk? I chose each thought purposefully and every one contains something helpful (I hope). 

These quotes should speak wisdom as we try to understand what’s happening to us.

A.W. Tozer

“It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He’s hurt him deeply.” (Roots of Righteousness, Chapter 39)

Calvin Miller

“Hurt is the essential ingredient of ultimate Christ-likeness.” (Quoted in Christianity Today, July 2007, p41)

Larry Crabb

“Brokenness isn’t so much about how bad you’ve been hurt but how you’ve sinned in handling it.” (Christianity Today, A Shrink Gets Stretched, May 1, 2003)

“Shattered dreams are never random. They are always a piece of a piece in a larger story. The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God, to help us begin dreaming the highest dream. They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to first awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream.” (Shattered Dreams, 2001)

Alan Redpath

“When God wants to do an impossible task, he takes an impossible person and crushes him.” (Quoted by Gary Preston, Character Forged from Conflict: Staying Connected to God During Controversy. The pastor’s soul series, (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1999)

Bruce Wilkinson

“Are you praying for God’s superabundant blessings and pleading that He will make you more like His Son? If so, then you are asking for the shears.” (Secrets of the Vine, 60.)

Charles Swindoll

“Someone put it this way, ‘Whoever desires to walk with God, walks right into the crucible.’ All who choose godliness live in a crucible. The tests will come.” (Moses, Great Lives from God’s Word, 285.)

“Being stripped of all substitutes is the most painful experience on earth.” (David, p70)

Elisabeth Elliot

“The surrender of our heart’s deepest longing is perhaps as close as we come to an understanding of the cross… our own experience of crucifixion, though immeasurably less than our Saviour’s nonetheless furnishes us with a chance to begin to know Him in the fellowship of His suffering. In every form of our own suffering, He calls us into that fellowship.” (Elisabeth Elliot, Quest For Love, (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 1996), 182.)

George MacDonald

“No words can express how much our world ‘owes’ to sorrow. Most of the Psalms were conceived in a wilderness. Most of the New Testament was written in a prison. The greatest words of God’s Scriptures have all passed through great trials. The greatest prophets have “learned in suffering what they wrote in their books.” So take comfort afflicted Christian! When our God is about to make use of a person, He allows them to go through a crucible of fire.”

Helen Keller

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through the experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” (Quoted in Leadership, Vol. 17, no. 4.)

Oswald Chambers

“God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers He uses to crush us with. If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way! But when He uses someone whom we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, and makes those the crushers, we object. We must never choose the scene of our own martyrdom. If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.” (Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (September 30). Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers.)

“No-one enters into the experience of entire sanctification without going through a ‘white funeral’ — the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crisis of death, sanctification is nothing more than a vision… Have you come to your last days really? You have come to them often in sentiment, but have you come to them really?… We skirt around the cemetery and all the time refuse to go to death… Have you had your ‘white funeral’, or are you sacredly playing the fool with your soul? Is there a place in your life marked as the last day, a place to which the memory goes back with a chastened and extraordinary grateful remembrance–’yes, it was then, at that ‘white funeral’ that I made an agreement with God.” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, January 15, (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour and Company, Inc., 1963).)

Jesus Christ had no tenderness whatsoever toward anything that was ultimately going to ruin a person in his service to God…. If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you can be sure that there is something in you that He wants to hurt to the point of its death.” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, September 27, (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour and Company, Inc., 1963.)

Charles Stanley

Does God purposefully allow suffering? “The comfortable, but theologically incorrect, answer is no. You will find many people preaching and teaching that God never sends an ill wind into a person’s life, but that position can’t be justified by Scripture. The Bible teaches that God does send adversity – but within certain parameters and always for a reason that relates to our growth, perfection, and eternal good.” (*Stanley, C. F. 1997, c1996. Advancing through adversity (electronic ed.). Thomas Nelson: Nashville, TN.)

Pit Songs

“I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
    and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
    out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
    and steadied me as I walked along.”

3″He has given me a new song to sing,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
    They will put their trust in the Lord.”

Psalms 40:1-3, NLT

Psalm 40 is jam packed with great and wonderful truth. It contains freedom for the Christian– a way out for the broken believer. We do well when we use it, and that’s what it’s there for. The deep pit has been used over many centuries as the way God teaches us to sing certain songs. But that doesn’t make it easier, does it?

Verse 1

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry.

Waiting is a critical word, it should not be regarded as trivial. In our daily walk we must be patiently seeking the Lord, that comes first. Admitting you need help is the first step. And guess what? You need help. 😁

The word ‘wait’ is special, it’s kawvah in Hebrew. It can mean ‘to bind together by twisting.‘ It can be used with the idea of braiding strands of rope together. It is never a passive act that just happens. Waiting on God is to be done with intentional purpose.

Remember that the Lord is not some distant deity on a hill far away.

He’s not hiding from you. It’s really quite the opposite.

He is closer to you than you think. He is responsive and aware. He hears your cries and wants to act; He is not deaf, but our patience is critical. Waiting on Him is crucial to being free. We must bind and twist our hearts and live our life to His desires.

Verse 2

He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.

The seeable terrain can be awful, with muddy paths and mucky pits. Things that pull you down and suck you in. They’ll trap the traveler. But the Holy Spirit is quite able to lift us out. He picks us up and secures us. He uses the rope of God’s Word.

He is way more willing to save us, than we are to being saved.

Solid ground is where we are meant to be. It’s become a place of firm standing and secure footing. He makes us steady and He keeps us safe. The Holy Spirit now has intimate care over your soul.

Verse 3-4

“He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord.

Some of the greatest songs are the ones that come from those just delivered from the pit.

These are ‘pit songs,’ offered to God from sincere and true hearts that have once been trapped. There’s something solid heard from the hearts of those redeemed from disaster.

These songs no longer sound religious or contrived.

“YOU CAN SEE GOD FROM ANYWHERE IF YOUR MIND IS SET TO LOVE AND OBEY HIM.”

A.W. Tozer

From our deepest pits come our greatest praises.

There is a passionate quality that saturates these ‘pit praises’ that is highly treasured by God, and esteemed and valued by the Church– a sense of authenticity starts to be finally heard. We can finally start to see that our pits become ‘launching pads’ of true songs of deliverance.

Living Well Among the Thorns

From desiringgod.org

Finding Strength in Physical Weakness

It’s easy to romanticize physical suffering — especially when you’re not the one experiencing it.

Saints like Amy Carmichael, who spent over twenty years bedridden, and Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic who lives in constant pain, can evoke peaceful images of unbroken communion with God. We may imagine that it’s easier for them to endure pain and weakness than it is for the rest of us.

Yet the reality of physical suffering is that it’s insistent and intrusive. No one gets used to it. Pain demands our attention. Time slows to a crawl, particularly in the middle of the night, when we’re begging God for the relief of sleep. We feel alone and isolated. No one else can enter the prison that our bodies have become.

Pain Accumulates

If that weren’t enough, physical pain rarely exists in isolation — it’s usually accompanied by loss, weakness, and dependence. Often, we require help with basic daily needs, and we worry about the burden we’re putting on others. We second-guess every request, not wanting to bother someone one more time. Will people get tired and think we’re “too much”? Do they resent their lack of freedom?

We longingly remember the carefree days before our physical struggles altered our lives, when we could do what we wanted. Now we measure our energy in teaspoons rather than buckets. We weigh every decision, every action. Saying yes to one activity means saying no to many others. It is hard not to envy those with fit bodies, who seem to have no cares.

Pain, loneliness, and longing can give way to depression and despair. We cry out to the Lord for relief, but relief doesn’t come. The cancer spreads. Sleep eludes us. The pain intensifies. The medicine stops working. The side effects multiply. Our caregivers grow weary. Our friends stop checking in. Our resources run dry.

Doubt Advances

The vibrant faith we once had begins to fade — which is exactly what Satan wants to happen as we suffer. He wants us to doubt and fall away from God, convinced that he is indifferent to our cries. Satan knows that we’re susceptible to discouragement when we’re physically depleted, so that’s when he attacks. As physical needs scream for attention, Satan whispers to us, “Does God even hear you, let alone really care for you? If he does, why isn’t he delivering you?”

Insidious doubts slip in, making us question beliefs we once held rock-solid: Are we deeply loved by an all-powerful Father? As soon as we recognize the mental shift, we need to stop and cry out to God, asking him to meet us in our sorrow, to deliver us from our pain, and to show us evidence of his goodness and love. Are we fixating on all that we’ve lost, on how God hasn’t delivered us, on how hopeless we feel? Or do we recognize that God is with us, working for our good, and caring for us each moment?

What we think about in the moments of our deepest pain is critical. Our mindset will determine how we approach the questions that bombard us. Here are three common questions I’ve asked:

  1. How can God be “for me” if I’m still suffering?
  2. How can God use my weakness for good?
  3. What good can come in moments of overwhelming pain?

How can God be ‘for me’ if I’m still suffering?

Sometimes God miraculously delivers us when we plead for relief, like at the parting of the Red Sea. Other times he sustains us, as he did with manna in the wilderness. The Red Sea deliverance freed the Israelites, but their need for manna kept them dependent on God. In gathering manna, they had a harder time forgetting their reliance on God. And if God’s greatest blessing is himself, then perhaps sustenance is a more precious gift than deliverance, since it can keep us in constant communion with him.

Take the apostle Paul. He begged God for deliverance from his thorn in the flesh, but instead he received grace — grace to bear the thorn, grace to be content with weakness, grace that would carry him through other trials as well (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).

When we realize that we can depend on God in our weakness, we learn to trust him in everything. Anyone can thank God for quick deliverance from physical suffering, but we often forget him until the next crisis. Yet when he sustains us in our pain, we’re confident that he is with us always.

How can God use my physical weakness for good?

We may think our physical weakness is keeping us from maximum fruitfulness, but that’s impossible. Our weaknesses are a part of God’s plan for our lives; they are intertwined with our calling. Paul thought his thorn was hampering his ministry, but God knew that it was the key to his strength: it forced Paul to be wholly dependent on God. When we are depleted and exhausted, lacking any resources of our own — it is then that we fully rely on God.

And in that reliance, we discover the power of God flowing through us — the same power that raised Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1:19–20). This power keeps us enduring when we want to give up; it showcases God’s glory and brings lasting change. Because Paul relied on God’s provision, he accomplished more for the kingdom with his thorn than he could have without it. His greatest strength lay in his submission to Christ.

Even Jesus’s greatest strength appeared in his greatest physical weakness.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus impacted others by his actions. He calmed the storm with a word. He fed five thousand with a few loaves and fish. He cast out demons, healed the sick, and raised the dead. He turned the world upside down.

But at the end of his ministry, from the Last Supper on, Jesus allowed others to act upon him: he was led away, he was whipped and mocked, he was beaten and crucified. When he submitted to his captors, the crowds saw weakness rather than what was really there: Jesus’s strength and power.

Just before these horrific events, Jesus begged God to take the cup of suffering from him. But it was through Christ’s submission to the will of the Father — to torture and humiliation, to physical abuse and carrying his own cross — that God brought about the most astonishing display of his power and grace.

Article by Vaneetha Rendall Risner

Deep Waters

Tears and sorrow overwhelmed me
day after day after week after year
No relief in sight as hopelessness
appeared to win and then

He drew me out of
deep waters

Each day presents a new challenge
or the same challenge never ending
And I feel like I’m drowning
in evasion and falsehood but

He draws me out of
deep waters

Tedium is like rising water
and I’m not that tall so
it’s sure to be over my head
eventually and yet

He draws me out of
deep waters

New loss reminds of past loss
and grief changes but never goes away
floods emotion unexpectedly
till I’m drowning and then

He draws me out of
deep waters

And in the end I soar above
the deep waters in faith
knowing He will always
draw me out

Love you.

Linda K.

My site can be found at AnotherFearlessYear.net