He heals the broken-hearted

and binds up their sorrows.

Psalms 147:3  

Nothing is more devastating than being betrayed by an intimate friend.

Someone who knows all our secrets.

Someone who shares the same friends and church.

Maybe it is something small, like your private business running through all those circles. You confided a prayer request to a friend over coffee one morning, only to discover that the entire ball park knows about it before you arrive that afternoon. Maybe a friend at work turned out to be an enemy in sheep’s clothing, who took all your work as her own and received your credit and promotion. Or maybe you walked into to work and were the object of razor-tongued women who had chosen you for their “rip-up” target of the day. Perhaps you have experienced a husband running away, or the double whammy of a husband and a friend running off together.

Sometimes life can become so difficult that our faith is shaken and pulled to the point that we wonder if we have the faith to get up and face another day! The pain that comes from such a loss is followed by the mental ruminations that can torment us until our last breath if we don’t deal with them. We hold on to so much in our hearts and in our minds.

Did you realize that this all began in the garden of Eden?

Yes, it is part of the consequences God handed down to Eve. She wanted to know what God knew. In learning that, she was also allowed to know the heart of God. She learned, as do all women, the sorrow of a broken heart.

In Genesis 3:14 God says to Eve, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children; yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Notice that there was no curse. God did not curse His children, but as any good parent, He handed down consequences that fit the heinous sin of rebellion.

The Lord God said that the pain of childbirth would increase, so there must have been a measure of pain from the start. The word pain occurs twice in the sentence. The first time, the Hebrew word is itstsabown, physical pain, and it can also be translated as sorrow, labor, or labor in childbirth. It is the same word God uses for Adam as he worked the land that was now cursed.

Etseb is the second word for pain. It is a thing shaped or formed, an earthen vessel, labor, toil, trouble, grievance. Matthew Henry Commentary calls this pain a state of sorrow. According to Webster’s College Dictionary, sorrow means mental suffering caused by loss, disappointment, grief, sadness, or regret. So there is not only physical pain associated with childbirth; there is also emotional pain with forming these earthen vessels in the way they should go. Even though raising children causes sorrow, those children are also a source of great joy. We laugh with them as well as cry with them, and we rejoice in their victories as though they were our own.

We live in a fallen world. We all face the consequences of sin, but remember that we have not been left alone. Jesus sent us His Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us through all the sorrow, fears, and tears. Jesus knows it’s hard on this side of heaven, and He stays near to help us in our struggle.

His goal is not for us to struggle, but through the struggle to enable our faith to grow, and our relationship to grow, into oneness with Him.

Trust Jesus to be all that you need in the crisis that you find yourself in today.  Trust is faith activated across time.

I’m posting excerpts from my book, String of Pearls this week.  And Linking with Imperfect Prose, and Raising Mighty  Arrows, and Write it girl

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Diane W. Bailey is the founder of The Consilium – an online community of wisdom and purpose for women over 45 years of age. She is a published author. Her books include String of Pearls – From Tears to Treasure, and 30 Days To A Better Stepfamily. She creates her own line of precious metals bracelets. Diane lives in the Deep South with her husband Doc. Together they have created a stepfamily, each having two stepchildren and two birth children, and share three grandchildren, one black lab named Charlie and one long haired tabby cat named Lil Girl. Diane’s passion is to encourage women to be all God has created them to be by pressing past fear and daring to live life as an adventure. Some of her life adventures include traveling to Israel, speaking, entrepreneurship and backyard farming with Doc. She loves Gumbo, fried shrimp and seeing all sunsets across water.

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