Joyce Meyer daily devotional March 13 2022 :
Anytime a person is wounded in their soul, that woundedness affects other people. It can have an impact on your social life, especially if your pain has caused you not to trust people or not to want to enter into healthy relationships. If you are a wife or a mother, one of the consequences of the hurt from your past is that it can negatively influence your relationships with your husband and your children, unless you let God heal you. It is sad to think about the fact that the pain one person has suffered can ultimately cause pain to others, but that’s the truth. However, there is a greater truth in these situations: your healing can also affect the people around you, and it will have a positive impact on them.
I cannot overemphasize the importance of our relationships with other people. Every area of our lives includes relationships of some sort, whether they are on-the-surface acquaintances, deep friendships, or family relationships. All we have to offer to the people around us is what’s inside us. If our hearts are filled with pain, anger, fear, rejection, or other negative qualities, that’s what we give the people in our lives. If we are filled with peace, love, joy, hope, and other positive attributes, then we can share those good things with them.
I encourage you today to think about your relationships. Is there a steady stream of good things flowing from you to your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers? Or do people feel they have to be on guard when they are around you because they have learned they will not hear anything from you that will encourage them or lift them up? Do you talk about yourself and your problems excessively, or do you express an interest in how other people are doing? When you hear about something good that has happened for someone else, can you sincerely rejoice with that person, or do you find yourself jealous inside? Every bit of negativity I have mentioned in this paragraph can be eliminated as your soul is healed. God wants to bring you into a great place of healing and wholeness not only for yourself, but so you can be a blessing to the people you care about.
The journey to healing is not always smooth and easy. It will require you to take an honest look at some painful places in your life and allow the Lord to touch and heal them. In those difficult moments, I encourage you to press on and not to give up, remembering that your healing can have a positive impact on lots of people. I did not like to think about how my past woundedness had hurt other people before my soul was healed, but I rejoice now because God is using the healing. He has done in my heart to help others. Stay on your healing journey and watch how He will use you!
Prayer Starter: Lord Jesus, thank You for loving me and healing me. I want to have a positive impact on the people in my life and experience more hope and joy in You.
Author: Joyce Meyer
Source: Joyce Meyer ministries / joycemeyer.org