Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

I'm Kirsten Holmberg, and I titled our reading, Both Are True.

After three decades, Fang Lulu was reunited with her birth family.

As a toddler, she was kidnapped while playing outside her house. But through the help of all China Women's Federation, she was finally

located. Because she was so young when she was abducted, Fenglu doesn't remember it.

She grew up believing she'd been sold because her parents couldn't afford to keep her.

So learning the truth surfaced many questions and emotions.

When Joseph was reunited with his brothers in Genesis, Chapter 45, it's likely he experienced

some complex emotions. He'd been sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt as a young man.

Despite a series of painful twists and turns, God propelled Joseph to a position of authority.

When his brothers came to Egypt to buy food during a famine, they, unwittingly sought it from him. Joseph acknowledged that God

redeemed their wrongdoing, saying he used it to save their lives by a great deliverance.

Yet Joseph didn't redefine their hurtful actions toward him.

He described them accurately as,

selling him.

We sometimes try to put an overly positive spin on difficult situations,

focusing on the good God brings from them without acknowledging the emotional struggle.

Let's take care, not to redefine a wrong as being good, simply because God redeemed it.

We can look for him to bring good from it while still recognizing the pain wrongdoing causes.

Both are true. Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Genesis chapter 45 verses 3 through 11. Joseph said to his brothers,

I am Joseph.

Is my father still living?

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