Growing Through Pain

God has been teaching me a lot these last two years.  He’s been teaching me there is growth through pain.

So many times in my Christian walk I thought that living on the mountaintop was the true purpose of a Christian life.  Yet, as I get older and wiser, I realize that my relationship with Christ is a journey.  As God takes me through the painful valleys, I learn more with each step of who He is as our Father.  God is showing me His character, His love, but most of all His tenderness towards me as I worked through my pain and repentance.  As Christians we must dig into these valleys, break open the wounds, and do the hard work. 

Hard work will be perceived differently, depending on the type of challenging and painful experience someone is living.  For me, it began with looking at my failures in leadership. God always calls leaders to a higher standard.  Leaders, first and foremost, should be servants in the Lord’s stead. God showed me that pride and control (even if we tell ourselves they are not intentional) were two things holding me back from becoming an effective leader.  By truly seeking His will, God peeled back the pain I was experiencing, exposing the root of the problem inside my heart - I was struggling with pride and control issues.  Despite my personal vices, God continued to use my situation to demonstrate His love for me.  God’s love is so deep for us that He walks beside us while we are sitting in the midst of pain, and then begins to reveal His will for our lives.  This is what God did for me by exposing my shortcomings and asking me to adjust my personal will.  Trying to jump into things we think are His desire and then expecting blessings for the plans was the kind of pride God exposed in me.  God was able to open my eyes and help me realize that waiting for His plan was a much better choice.     

God’s attributes should be our goals. It’s not about what we think our lives should look like, nor what culture says success looks like. Only through doing the hard work of looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing His will do you get the freedom to live abundantly.  This kind of self-reflection provides a chance of personal growth by working through pain and using our mistakes as a means to mold us to His likeness.

I want to share my flaws with Him and with the people who love me.  In writing this, with you as my audience, we can all learn how He redeems you through the pain and mess-ups in your own lives.

I feel this passion welling up inside of me that wants to scream, “I’m not perfect but Christ is!” Get to know Him, follow Him, and work through your pain and disappointments through Him.  By letting Christ walk through all the junk with you, I promise you will be fulfilled and your excitement for Him won’t be able to be contained.  He is real.  He is Truth.  Through my valley of pain, I got more of Him than I could have ever imagined.  

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:10-14

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Becky Sides-Harding met her husband, John Harding, at the University of Missouri where we both graduated and have been married for 28 years. They have three children Caroline, JD and Kate, and recently became grandparents. Becky co-owns Area Properties Real Estate - River Region, which currently partners with two local foster nonprofits. She has served in many different capacities at the United Methodist church, and is passionate about third world missions, particularly in Haiti. 

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