When I was 7 years old, I was in a bad accident in which I suffered a pretty severe broken leg and had to be taken to the hospital for immediate surgery. By the grace of God, the surgeons were able to repair my bones and I was put in a full leg cast to begin the healing process. When we got back home to Houston, I went to see an orthopedic doctor who when taking a look saw that the bone was not healing properly and therefore he had to reset the bone. He essentially had to re-break my leg so that it could heal.

I’ll never forget laying on that table and as the doctor was re-breaking my leg, grabbing my mom’s hand as tight as I could, pulling her down to my face, and yelling through the pain “DOES HE KNOW WHAT HE’S DOING?!”.

It’s a funny story now that we laugh about, but in that moment of extreme pain, I questioned everything about that doctor’s wisdom, expertise, degree. I mean did he even go to medical school?

I don’t know what went through his mind, as he heard me yelling questioning what he was doing. I’m sure he didn’t like having to put this little 7-year-old girl through pain like that, but he knew it’s what was best for me and the healing of my leg.

Seventeen years later, I find myself asking that same question. Except this time, instead of asking my mom, I am looking straight into The Great Physician’s eyes. And He’s not just my doctor, He is my Father.

Do you know what you are doing? Are you sure this is your best for me? Can I really trust you? Do you know how painful this is?

Pain has a way of making us question the authority of the One allowing the pain, the One inflicting the pain even. It’s uncomfortable and it doesn’t feel good or right, and sometimes it can make days feel like weeks and hope harder to cling to.

I’ve found myself in a season I did not see coming with circumstances I would not have picked myself.  It’s a season of more change that I thought I could handle and more time alone than I wanted. And through the circumstances and time, God is revealing sin, pulling up deep roots, opening up old wounds, and letting my fears become reality. And it’s one of the most painful things I have walked through in a long time.

There are many days I’ve chosen to avoid it and numb my mind or stay busy. Because choosing to face these things God is revealing is painful.

But then I read Hebrews 12:11-13: “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight the paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.”

And I remember He is a good Father. He is Love. Everything He does flows from His love. Healing always follows pain. I get to present my places of hurt, my places of doubt, my fears, and the lies I believe to Him, not so he can condemn me in them, but so that He can bring healing to them. So that He can bring freedom to the areas of bondage.

God is a God who sets captives free. You see it run through the entire story of the pages of the Bible. But the key to God setting us free is really the why.

The first time we see God setting people free in Scripture is when He rescues the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. Over and over, God tells Moses to say to Pharaoh “Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.”

The purpose of freedom is not just for the sake of being free, but so that we may worship God. It’s what we were made for. There is no greater joy, peace, wholeness, or freedom than when our hearts are truly and freely set on Jesus.

Pain leads to healing. Healing leads to freedom. Freedom leads to worship. Worship leads us into intimacy with Jesus and Jesus says that Eternal Life is found in knowing him (John 17:3).

So yes, this season doesn’t all make sense yet and it’s painful, but I’m choosing to declare God’s goodness even when I can’t see it because what’s true in the light is still true in the dark. I’m choosing to believe His ways are better than mine, and I’m choosing to trust Him because He’s only ever proven to be faithful to me and to His promises.

The Lord gave me these words a few weeks ago to a song that I am still writing:

“You say there’s a light and though I don’t see it, I’ll say that you’re good and I might start to believe it.”

And it’s been the sweetest to sing those words, to sing that He is good, and to find myself not just knowing but believing His goodness again.

UPDATE: I finished the song referenced above.