Follow Where He Leads: Letting God turn our pain into trust

Have you ever run into someone at a store or walking your dog on the running track through your city and left the conversation in awe that God led you to each other in that moment? Well, I had a similar feeling a couple of weeks ago.

Leaving our son’s room after putting him down to sleep, I tiptoed down the hallway back to the kitchen where the giant pile of dishes waited for me. I peaked my head around the corner into the living room where my husband was attending a virtual class to prepare for an intense exam coming up next month. I checked the time on the stove. 7:15 p.m. Still 30 minutes before my writer meeting.

I wish I didn’t have this meeting tonight.

God has the uncanny ability to turn this exact thought into, I am so glad I had that meeting tonight, or fill in the blank for the activity you wanted to avoid. Every time I feel that thought cross my mind, but I do whatever it is anyway, God meets me. He shows up in ways only He can.

God Leads Us to People

God draws people together. He’s done it since the beginning of time on Earth. In the moment, we don’t know or understand why we are led to a specific person, but amazing things happen when we obediently walk the path the Lord sets before us.

It was a regular Tuesday night, and I was worn out. The air blew out of the seat cushion as I plopped down into my desk chair, looking at the toys still scattered across the living room floor. One hundred excuses not to start the zoom meeting popped into my head all at once. With a sigh of resignation, I clicked ‘Start Meeting’ and put on my happy-tired face.

The meeting went as usual. We discussed our writing goals from the previous two weeks and chit-chatted about the things we did between meetings. As I brought us back around to setting writing goals for the next two weeks, it happened. While discussing one woman’s problem with her new website, she revealed the real reason she was hesitant to move forward.

When she first got started in the working world after getting her degree many years ago, she had a traumatic experience in the workplace where her trust was broken. It left more scars than she thought it would years later.

While she told her story, a movie reel played through my mind of my own experience with broken trust and trauma’s far-reaching fingers. After exchanging stories, we realized it wasn’t just our work self-esteem that was damaged by these experiences, but our real self-esteem too.

We all laughed at the serendipity of it all and for finding people who understood. Before leaving the call that night, this woman said, “It’s not so easy to separate my work self from my real self.” Her words contained a poignancy that left me scrambling to scratch them on paper before they left on the breeze.

Everyone Has A Story to Tell

Everyone has a story to tell, even the girl who bullied you in middle school, or that person who cut you off in traffic. Those stories might be closer to our own tale than we think. God created us as living, breathing, creative beings, and our design was meant to bring us toward one another in connection and relationship.

We learn early to sort people into different boxes which dictate how, or if, we interact with them. Good, bad, mean, kind, funny, serious, rebel, rule-follower, bully, friend. Our brains like the organization of these neat and tidy boxes for the people we meet, but life will not be confined to a box, both literal and metaphorical. The boxes help us figure out who we can connect with and who we should keep a distance from. It’s both a time saving practice, as well as a protective one.

If I stick someone with the label ‘mean,’ ‘bully,’ or ‘hurtful,’ my brain knows to steer clear of that person to avoid future pain. I place them in their designated box and when I see them around town or at work or at church, I turn around and walk the other direction. Conflict avoided.

The Problem with Boxes

The box system works well at helping us avoid conflict and pain in relationships, but maybe its efficiency is hurting us too. The boxes don’t let us get close to people with more negative labels to protect us from potential hurt. They keep us at arm’s length from them, keeping any connection to the surface. Conversations don’t go deeper than a chat about the weather or a compliment on the dress.

Like I said before, this is a protective mechanism as much as it is a time saver. For unhealthy or toxic relationships, the distance the boxes create is necessary. I don’t need to be close to the girl in high school who tore my self-esteem to shreds, then set the pile on fire.

Self-preservation is more important than kindling any kind of relationship with someone who creates a toxic environment for you.

When the boxing system does its job, people are labeled on snap judgements, sealed up in their box, and we don’t have to worry about them anymore. The boxes keep us safe from hurtful people, but they can become a burden when they label everyone we meet. The well-oiled machine will actually prevent us from developing those close connections we want and need.

Burn Me Once, Shame on You

What happens when you accidentally touch a hot eye on the stovetop? You don’t touch it again. The same is true if broken trust is part of your story. When you’ve been burned once, you don’t touch the flame again.

It’s safer, you learn, to box people up, to keep them at a distance, to never show them your vulnerable side.

I still feel the heat of shame and embarrassment course through me when I share details about my experience from high school or the job I got fired from after only a month. We want our experiences to box up nice and tidy like the people we label, for their effects to reach only so far. What I am learning is the more I grow in age and experience, the more I can see the black marks of that first burn staining my fingers as I reach out for connection.

The triggers are still underneath my pleasant, happy demeanor. I still feel them pulling me toward insecurity and uncertainty, even, at times, in my marriage. But what I am also learning is the verse from Romans 8 is true.

“We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose” (28).

The trauma we go through is not in itself good, but God uses all things in our lives to bring about good for us. The things I’ve experienced that are by themselves bad are turning good before my eyes, as I learn that I can actually trust God.

I can trust that He hasn’t forgotten me in my prayer fatigue. I can trust what He has planned and the path He lays out for me to get there. I can trust that my emotional scars make me a more compassionate listener, a more loyal friend, and a more willing helper when I am needed.

Can you see the path God took to get you where you are now? I’d love to hear your story. Leave a comment below or send me an email to let me know.