Past the Pain: Guest Blogger Cassi Rinehart

We have been doing rotations of the leaders speaking to the students at U-Turn for the last few months. Scott has had one of the leaders share their story the first Wednesday of the month and this past week it was my turn. I have spoken to the students before and while I will always get nervous about getting up in front of people, I was not too worried about it. Little did I know what God was going to lay on my heart to share and how that was going to rock me to my very core.

When God starts to meddle in your past, it is rarely pleasant but it is always productive. I was out driving around, thinking and praying the other night when God revealed how a choice I made on a night, years ago, was affecting my life today. The area that God decided I needed to deal with that night was private and very painful, I had to face some regrets and failures that I had tried to forget. Through mercy and many tears on my part, I finally began to allow wounds from long ago heal. But healing was only the beginning of my journey.

As I began to pray about what to speak about God kept bringing that night to my mind. “Ok, I thought, what did I learn I could share with the kids?” No matter how I tried to spin it and wiggle around it, I knew simply sharing lessons learned was not what God wanted of me. God was trying to tell me that I needed to talk about that painful night many years ago, my bad choices, the consequences I experienced and most importantly how God took care of me through all of it, but I didn’t want to hear any of it. I was willing to talk about most anything but THAT! He had healed me and that was great. I would share my wisdom, my joy, but not my pain, that was private. How could God expect me to get up on stage and talk about details of my life that not even my best friend knew? I was terrified that people would judge me for my past. What if no one saw me quite the same if they knew this about me? But God wouldn’t leave me alone and finally I gave in.

Last week I stood in front of a room full of teenagers and shared the story of one of the most painful nights of my life. I was still scared but I was obedient to what God wanted me to do and something amazing happened. No one looked at me any differently, no one judged me but that wasn’t even close to the best part: lives were changed! God used my pain to change other people’s lives. Through my obedience, students reached out for healing. I hate the think about what might have happened if I kept it to myself? If I had been too scared to speak out and share?

We all have something that we don’t want anyone to know. We all fear being judged and found lacking. The thought of rejection is enough to silence most people. I think God is calling each one of us to a place where we can share that one thing in our lives we know can change the future for someone but have been too terrified to do anything about it. Regardless of what that one thing is for you, today is the day to stop letting fear keep you from sharing what you know God wants you to. You never know when your yesterday is what changes tomorrow for someone else.

Isaiah 54:4

Don't be afraid—you're not going to be embarrassed.
Don't hold back—you're not going to come up short.
You'll forget all about the humiliations of your youth,
and the indignities of being a widow will fade from memory.

~Cassi