Purpose in the Pain

I’ve learned something the hard way... God doesn’t waste pain. Not a single tear... Not a single valley... Not a single season I thought would break me.

I didn’t understand why certain things happened. I didn’t understand why I had to walk through the darkness, why I had to feel abandoned, why certain chapters of my life hurt the way they did. Trauma teaches you to see the world through wounds instead of hope. It makes you believe the valley is punishment instead of preparation.

Every valley I walked through, He was shaping me. Every heartbreak, every loss, everything I thought was going to destroy me, it became where my purpose started to grow. I didn’t see it at the time. Most of us don’t. When you’re deep in the valley, all you can see are shadows. But shadows only exist when there’s light somewhere nearby.

Psalm 23, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”
It doesn’t say God watches us walk through it. It says He walks with us. Right beside us. Right in it. And if He’s walking with me, then the valley is not the end, it’s part of the path.

I can look back now and see the purpose in things that felt pointless. I see how the pain gave me compassion. I see how the brokenness gave me empathy. I see how the nights I thought would never end became testimony I can use to help someone else find their way out.

When you’re in the valley, it feels like punishment. But when you come out on the other side, you realize it was training. God wasn’t breaking me there, He was building me there.

I still face valleys. I still have moments where the old wounds whisper louder than my faith. But I’ve learned that the valley isn’t a sign that God left me. It’s the place He teaches me the most. The mountain is where we celebrate, but the valley is where we grow. It’s where God strips away the layers we were never meant to carry. It’s where He reveals strength we didn’t know we had. It’s where He shows us who we really are in Him.

What feels like darkness might actually be development. What feels like silence might actually be God doing His deepest work. Your pain has purpose. Your valley has meaning. And when God brings you out… and He will… the very thing that wounded you becomes the very thing He uses to heal others.

Jeff