Redeeming Pain and Relationships

My blogging friend Mike recently posted about Joseph and his struggle to rise above his beginnings. Here is the comment I left on his blog:

Whenever I think about Joseph I remember that he was a teenage boy who lost his mother to death and had a hurting father who saw Joseph's pain and tried to help by giving him a wonderful cloak.

Another wonderful aspect is the way that God changed his heart after his brother's showed up in Egypt. I love it how God helps us to let go of the past and find something redeeming about it.

Just a few short thoughts about redemption.. how our pain often needs to be redeemed.. and how God can work in redemptive ways to restore broken relationships.

I can relate so well because I have a son who once lost a mother when he was a teen.. and a ten year old daughter who witnessed, with her brother and father, her mother die.. I can relate to wanting to ease their pain with gifts.. and I can relate to seeing redemption in the midst of that pain. I am amazed by God's redemptive purposes.