Encouragement for Today

August 12, 2025 Notice Your Pain SHARON HODDE MILLER Lee en español

“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed; my heart is like wax, melting within me.” Psalm 22:14 (CSB)

One night, as I was getting my infant son ready for bed, I suddenly collapsed onto the floor. A sharp pain radiated from my abdomen, so overwhelming that I could hardly breathe. My husband was out of town, so I called a neighbor for help, and it wasn’t long before I was in an ambulance.

Hours later, after a battery of tests, I learned the cause of all this drama: It was a “gallbladder attack.” Apparently gallbladders can attack!

Ten years later, I am now without a gallbladder, and while there are a lot of details about that night that I don’t remember very clearly, there is one thing I can tell you for sure.

In that ambulance, I was not thinking about the emails I needed to send, the errands I needed to run, the paper I needed to write, or my son’s bedtime.

The only thing I was thinking about was the pain.

That’s how pain works, right? It focuses on itself. Pain is “selfish,” one might say, and it was designed that way by God! Pain is our body’s way of asking for the care and attention it needs — and that’s a good thing.

For years, I’ve studied the relationship between self-focus and insecurity. We often experience insecurity when we are overly focused on ourselves. When we make ourselves the center of everything — our marriage, our parenting, our career — then our value gets tied to our success. For many people, that’s the cause of their insecurity struggle. They have made things about them that are not about them.

But it’s important to understand that often self-focus is a symptom of pain. Emotional pain, like physical pain, monopolizes our attention. We won’t overcome the soul-collapsing effects of self-focus simply by resolving to focus more on God. First we have to understand the pain drawing our attention inward.

In many biblical psalms of lament, David went into astonishing detail about his pain, examining his wounds from every conceivable angle: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed; my heart is like wax, melting within me” (Psalm 22:14). I believe that God includes these passages in His Word to reassure us of the importance of naming our pain. This sort of self-examination is not selfish but holy and wise.

The next time you notice yourself making a situation or relationship about you, dig a little deeper. That self-focus might be prideful vanity, but it might also be an unhealed wound crying out for attention.

If pain is what you discover, name it, understand it, and give yourself time to seek God's healing — because you cannot be free from the self until you heal the self.

Lord, I want to live a life centered more on You than on myself, but there is so much I need to heal. Help me to identify any wounds that are pulling my focus inward, and heal them so that I can live in freedom. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

OUR FAVORITE THINGS

If you long to be a little less focused on yourself and a little more focused on God, let Gazing at God: A 40-Day Journey to Greater Freedom from Self by Sharon Hodde Miller show you the way.

ENGAGE

Connect with Sharon Hodde Miller online at SheWorships.com or on Instagram @SharonHMiller.

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FOR DEEPER STUDY

Hebrews 12:1b-2a, “Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (CSB).

God does not heal us only for our own sake. He does not heal us simply to sit on the sidelines; He heals us to run.

In what ways has your insecurity sidelined you? Maybe it’s fear about going back to school, starting a business, homeschooling your kids, or stepping into a leadership position at church. Take some time to reflect or journal on what is underneath that insecurity. And share with us in the comments!

© 2025 by Sharon Hodde Miller. All rights reserved.

Proverbs 31 Ministries thanks Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, for their sponsorship of today’s devotion.

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