Bishop L. Lawrence Brandon - Treasures in the Darkness: Letting Go of Pain, Holding on to Faith

TREASURES

in the

DARKNESS

L. LAWRENCE BRANDON

LETTING GO of PAIN
HOLDING ON to FAITH

TREASURES IN THE DARKNESS
LETTING GO OF PAIN, HOLDING ON TO FAITH

Copyright 2013 by L Lawrence Brandon

All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-1-4267-5484-5

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified Bible. Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ( www.Lockman.org )

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crowns patentee, Cambridge University Press.

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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To my mother, Helen B. Lyons. Legally, the world says you are my great aunt. Heaven and I would say you are my momma. You raised me from infancy to manhood, and Ill forever be grateful to the Lord for you. You took me to church, you led me to Jesus Christ, and you taught me that earth has no sorrow heaven cannot healand for that, I thank you. I dedicate this book to you.

To my son, Larry Lawrence Brandon, III. I also dedicate this work to you because you will forever be in my memory. Not a day goes by that I dont think about you. Good night, Larry. Rest well. Ill see you in the morning.

I want to invite you on a journey of faith, one that reveals the love of God and how He can help you overcome private pain. What is private pain? It is severe emotional and mental distress that, for one reason or another, you keep to yourself. Many things in life can cause private pain. We all experience it at one time or another, especially when we lose someone or something thats very important to us.

Of course, losses happen for a variety of reasons. It could be that someone close to you has passed away. Maybe youve gone through a painful divorce and have been separated from your children. Perhaps youve lost your job or business. The list goes on and on.

Private pain from suffering a loss leads to experiencing grief, which often results in going through a common psychological process called the grief cycle. During this process, you go through different stages of mourning until you come through on the other side. Its important for you to understand how this process works, so you can fully release your pain and keep moving forward with your life.

Its also essential for you to understand how, especially when youre hurting, you can still trust God and have hope for the future. Something happens to us psychologically when we love God, yet we are hit with hardships and trials we cant make sense of or have long-term needs that go unfulfilled. We ask ourselves why we have to go through these things at all. Why does God allow them?

I encourage you: No matter what it takes, hold on to your faith in God. Moving out of faith can be a subtle process. Staying in faith is a vital part of releasing your pain, coming all the way through the grief process, and fulfilling your God-given destiny. Now, if by chance youre not certain youve received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, then its vital for you to receive Him so you can be fully restored. Jesus cares for you more than you know.

We all have issues. We have all been challenged, yet were all different. Everyone has his or her own fingerprints, even identical twins. But private pain is like a bullet. It has no gender, ethnic group, or race. Pain doesnt discriminate. It doesnt matter if youre wealthy or poor, young or old, male or female. Pain is pain. So we must remember: though each of us experiences and handles private pain in different ways, we must all come through the grief process.

If you feel trapped and isolated in your pain, then let me encourage you. Youre not alone. There is hope and help for you.

In this book, we will look honestly at our own hearts and closely at the Bible to see how everyday people handled private pain and grief. Sometimes they did well. Other times, they fell into presumption when their faith was put to the test and they tried to move ahead without asking for Gods guidance. I trust youll see yourself many times as we move through the chapters. So relax and allow yourself room to learn from their experiences. We will also examine many practical ways you can work through your pain. Youll find a Faith Check section at the end of every chapter so you can monitor your progress.

As we move forward, I encourage you to stretch, to open your heart and mind, and to be willing to see things differently, especially if youve been actively involved in church life. Sometimes we grow up with preconceived notions, and this is especially true in the church. We often tend to adapt to our culture, and the church is a subculture that has its own church lingo.

From a pastoral perspective, Id also like to help churches create an environment of trust, where people can admit theyre suffering from some type of pain that may be private to them, without being judged. Too often, we put on public masks and pretend that everything is fine because we feel its culturally acceptable. Its time for the masks to come off. We all have spots and blemishes; we all deal with private pain.

Sadly, there are some churches where the leader has issues, but masks it, fearing he or she will be rejected and ousted. If this is you, then I encourage you to keep reading. God wants you to stay in faith so you can let go of private pain and be restored. As Gods people, we need to hold on to faith and release our pain so we can begin to stand as the church visible that God has called us to be.

As we prepare to start our journey, I want you to understand: though you may never get over your loss, you can overcome it. Grief is a normal part of life. However, we can have victory over our pain through faith in Jesus Christ. So hold on to your faith! You can overcome those depressing feelings that are trying to overwhelm you. You can take the Band-Aids off your wounds and let the healing process begin.