Stop Putting Pain on a Pedestal

Devotions from the Back Row

September 13, 2026

Jenny Stutts

Stop Putting the Pain on a Pedestal

Scripture: "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." -Psalm 73:26

We love our bumper-sticker theology, don't we? We’ve all heard it a thousand times, and most of us have probably even said it out of survival: "What didn’t kill me, made me stronger.", “I built my life on the pain I went through.”, “pain is weakness leaving the body.” We look at our battle scars and convince ourselves that if we hadn’t walked through hell, we wouldn’t know how to survive today, protect our boundaries, or handle the next storm that blows through.

Now don't get me wrong: I am not taking anything away from sharing your story or talking about overcoming adversity. We need to talk about it. There is incredible power in testifying about the mountains you climbed and the odds you beat. But what I am talking about today is the lens you view that growth through, and where the power actually belongs.

I’m challenging you….take a hard look at the lens you’re using.

Are you building your identity on the scars of what almost took you out? Or are you standing firm as a Child of the Most High God, rebuilt, not by the fire, but by the ONE who walked through it with you?

Look at what that verse actually says. It doesn’t say “my paint made me tough.” It says flat out: “my flesh and my heart may fail..” That’s scripture admitting what we try so hard to cover up with tough talk. The flesh DOES give out. The heart DOES break.

When you walk around crediting the pain first, you are handing it authority and power it never earned. Pain did not build your endurance. Trauma didn't hand you strength. What trauma actually handed you was a broken heart, a dysregulated nervous system, racing panic in your chest, sleepless nights staring at the ceiling, addiction to numbness, trust issues, and days where you struggled to find the will to take your next breath. It broke you.

Think about it like a broken bone. You are in a car crash and you have blood loss and broken bones. Are you going to walk around praising the crash for your healing? No….you’re going to thank the surgeon, the nurses, the physical therapist, your spouse that sat at your bedside, your work in therapy, GOD. The crash just did the damage. It brought destruction. The surgeon, the healing process, and the body's design did the rebuilding.

If you are walking around carrying the poisoned thought: “God broke me on purpose to save me.” That’s a lie. God does not need to break you down to play the hero. We live in a broken, fallen world where selfish choices, bad people, sickness, and darkness cause real wreckage. God did not author your trauma. He didn't wreck you to teach you a neat little Sunday school lesson.

The pain was merely the unwanted trial that forced you to adapt. But the real miracle, the heavy lifting of getting out of bed when your hands were shaking, learning when to walk away, keeping your heart soft instead of completely bitter, and rebuilding your life from the ashes, that wasn't the storm. That was God meeting you right there on the floor in the middle of the rubble. That was His quiet grace sustaining you when you had zero fight left, coupled with your own stubborn, God-given grit to refuse to quit.

Stop letting the trauma take credit for what mercy rebuilt. Knock the pain off the pedestal. Change the lens: credit the Healer, not the catalyst. You survived because God never let go of your hand, and together, you decided the story wasn't over.

Let’s pray about it…

Lord,

Fix our perspective. Forgive us for honoring the things that tried to destroy us instead of honoring the God who kept us breathing through them.

Thank You for being a safe place to land. Thank You that You don't coordinate our abuse or heartbreak just to prove a point, but that You faithfully meet us in the ruins to pick up the pieces. Where our hearts are still guarded, give us peace. Where our nervous systems are still stuck in fight-or-flight, give us rest. Break off the lie that we are defined by the wreck. Teach us to rest in the hands that healed us, and remind us every single morning that our true strength begins, stays, and ends in You.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Discussion Question

Think about the hardest season you survived: what is the difference between saying "that storm made me strong" versus saying "God and I built strength while surviving that storm"?

Take-Home Reflections

1. What specific wound or season of trauma have you been accidentally praising or crediting for your resilience, and how can you give that credit back to God this week?

2. How does shifting your language—from defining yourself by the trial (the survivor of the wreck) to defining yourself as a redeemed child of God who is being restored—change how you view your future?

3. Where in your daily life are you still operating out of trauma's side effects (fear, isolation, hyper-vigilance) instead of walking in the safety and healing God provides?

The Back-Row Challenge

Every time a bitter thought, trigger, or old memory hits you this week and whispers, "Look what that made you," stop immediately. Say out loud: "That didn't build me; it only tried to break me. God and I did the rebuilding." Intentionally strip the trauma of its credit and thank God right then for the breath in your lungs.

Listen to

"Survivor" by Zach Williams