00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 652 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Doug Nordmann and I'm Carol Pitner. And we're the authors of raising your money savvy family for next generation financial independence. And we challenge you to really focus on becoming money savvy. One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Mader.
00:00:34 But what time does do is allows you to get some distance where you can get some ability to integrate what you're supposed to have learned, to take those lessons and make them part of who you are in a healthy and a positive way. So what do you do when you're struggling with pain? What do you do when you see people hurting each other? And it hurts you welcome.
00:00:59 And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, who will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. In today's spiritual foundation episode about impacting the world.
00:01:33 I talk with you about why your pain can't be compared to that of others. I talk about why your pain is your pain, and it always has an effect on you and why it's not about just getting over it. One thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately is we live in this time where COVID-19 is going on and people are arguing and fighting and yelling at each other.
00:02:03 People are comparing their own journey and their own opinions and their own feelings and their own even sets of facts with each other, based on what they see about the world and what they feel about the world and whether or not their journey is the same as somebody else's. I've seen people talking about pain about, about frustration, about suffering trials, tribulations, whatever name you want to give it,
00:02:31 the pain that we all feel from time to time in this world, and whether you're a person of faith or you're not. I believe that we all have things that come into our life that create painful journeys. And one of the things that I've seen people do is try to compare their pain to others. You know, I have this worse right now.
00:02:52 I'm under more stress than you because of fill in the blank. I I've, I've more pain in my life because I had this happen to me, or that happened to me. The experiences that I've had have created a certain amount of tribulation and pain and struggle in my life. And the truth is that at the end of the day, we really cannot compare any person's pain to anyone.
00:03:24 Else's, you know, the journey that we're sent on by God, as we go through our lives is each unique and different. We're not promised by God a a time that is peaceful and everything goes well, we're not promised a Rose garden. You know, the, the passage that I reflect on is the one that says, pick up your cross and follow me that wasn't an invitation to an easy life.
00:03:54 And there are tons of passages in the Bible about this, but what's also present throughout the Bible is this recognition that the pain that we have, the journey that we have ends up preparing us in some way for something else. This isn't a matter of, you know, God never gives you more than you can handle. That's bologna. God often gives you more than you can handle this.
00:04:18 Isn't a matter of, you know, it'll always work out. If you have enough faith, everything will work out. No, that's not necessarily true either. I've seen people with some of the most deep and powerful faith ever who still have trials and tribulations visited in their life. Instead. It's about the recognition that when you have your pain, whatever it is,
00:04:42 it's, it's yours. It's something that you have to deal with. If you lean on God and others, it makes that journey easier. But the truth is your pain always has an effect on you. Your pain always visits your life in some way, and your pain always creates a journey that you're on and the results of that journey. It, it,
00:05:09 it has an effect on the path that you have, but you get to choose how you want that to affect you. You get to choose whether that path turns towards good or turns towards bad. Whether that pain allows you to wallow in it and stay there for the rest of your life, or that pain makes you stronger and more able to show others the way does,
00:05:37 does your mess become part of your message or does it just become a mess? Your pain is always your pain and your pain always has an effect. And I don't care how you've lived your life. I don't care if everything has been perfect. And you were born with a silver spoon in your, and everything's always gone your way, you still have pain.
00:06:02 That's affected you. And you have to be aware of that and recognize that and develop that and acknowledge that so that it becomes part of you in a healthy way, instead of in a negative way. You know, one of the things that I've seen people say to each other nowadays, especially is just get over it, you know, deal with it,
00:06:26 get over it, heal and move on. You know, it's not that big of a deal. This is why oftentimes people compare. They say your pain isn't as big of a deal as my pain. So you should just get over your pain. You should just move on from your pain, because the truth is, that's not that big of a deal,
00:06:46 but that's false. It is a big deal. At least for that person. It doesn't matter whether you think it's a big deal. What matters is whether they see it as a big deal. And the truth is it's never about just getting over it. It's never about just moving on. I don't care if it's grief. I don't care if it's anger.
00:07:05 I don't care if it's anything, an illness, whatever it is that has created stress and pain in your life, you don't just get over it. You can get through it though. You can keep moving forward and allow that pain to inform your journey. Absolutely, but not to dictate it, but that's not easy to do. That's another reason why we're put into community.
00:07:32 That's another reason why we're told to have a strong relationship with God because out of others and out of that relationship with God comes that ability to not just not get over it, to not just move on, to not heal your time, heals all wounds that's bull. But what time does do is allows you to get some distance where you can get some ability to integrate what you're supposed to have learned,
00:08:00 to take those lessons and make them part of who you are in a healthy and a positive way. So what do you do when you're struggling with pain? What do you do when you see people hurting each other? And it hurts you? What do you do? Whatever you've had experiences that are overwhelmingly negative, and yet you still need to get up in the morning.
00:08:24 You still need to go to work. You still need to do the things that need to happen. How do you actually move through that? Share some tips that you've got in the comments below this post, or email them to me@scottatinspiredstewardship.com. I'm really curious how each of us managed to make our pain, our own and move through it with health. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:09:02 As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there until next time,
00:09:42 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world..