God is so amazing. I have a migraine that’s so bad I can’t enjoy one of the shows I usually do. My body hurts everywhere, and I’m exhausted. Yet, God is still amazing.

Why?

God gave me a living body. Living things grow, hurt, heal, and feel. To ask God to let me feel joy but never sorrow is like asking for a rainbow without the rain. You might want the pretty bow, but you’re asking to remove part of what gives the rainbow its majesty and beauty.

It is hard to be thankful when you’re hurting. It gets even harder when you think about being thankful in the very things that hurt you—other people, their mistakes, their words, and their choices.

But God is bigger than them.

He doesn’t have to erase what happened to make a miracle from it. He can redeem it. He can take what hurt and grow something better from it.

Thank You, God.

But can we still be thankful when what hurts belongs to us? Our own bodies, thoughts, and conditions? How many times have we asked God to change or erase the things that are part of us because they make life harder?

Our temptations. Our traumas. Our diagnoses. Our problems.

Sometimes the things we call “mine” consume so much of our attention that it becomes difficult to see anything beyond them. But God is still bigger.

He still calls us to choose Him through all of the “ours” that consume us. He still gives us opportunities to find Him when our minds are screaming, “My pain. My problem. My body. My struggle.”

Being thankful to God for my body doesn’t make my body feel better right now. It’s still hard to write this.

Yet, my pain doesn’t change God’s love for me. It doesn’t change His willingness to comfort me. It doesn’t erase the small blessings He’s given me so that I can endure this with Him.

I know there are more painful things and more difficult things people face—things I cannot imagine l. But I can’t imagine the greatness of God’s love, either.

So I hope this testimony can be a witness to that greatness. Even when the “my…” that hurts feels like it’s consuming you, God is still greater. 

And He can fill you with a love greater than the thing you’re enduring.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” —‭‭I Thessalonians‬ ‭5‬:‭16‬-‭18‬ ‭NKJV‬‬