Thanks for listening to this Susie Larson Live podcast available thanks to support from listeners like you.

Welcome to Susie Larson Live. Always so honored to get to spend this time with you.

In fact, I look forward to bringing you conversations every single day that hopefully

inspire you in your faith walk, the deep in your understanding of God's word, and it heightens your

awareness of his very real presence in your life. Well, we've been talking lately about pain

avoidance, about the lengths we go not to feel pain, not to endure loss or heartache.

And you sure understand why. I mean, who wants that? But you think about the kind of energy

that we put into avoiding pain and how it actually

putting all that energy into conflict avoidance, pain avoidance, trying not to get hurt,

really does diminish our sense of faith, hope, love, expectancy. What if instead of building

fortresses around our lives, we learn to trust God to guard and guide us to

provide for us, to show us his nearness in every twist and turn of life? No one wants to suffer,

but isn't that what points most of us to talk about our growth and maturity? Like when you look

over your shoulder, isn't that the thing, those suffering places that you go, that's really where I became the person.

God intended me to be.

That's where I met God.

That's where I understood on a deeper level what God's word meant, what the enemy intended for evil

and how God turned it for good.

In fact, I'd love to ask you the question.

What's one thing you've walked through that you'd say?

I wouldn't want to go through it again, but I wouldn't trade it now in hindsight because of how God

used it. What's one thing you've walked through? My husband says it about cancer. It's from 20 years ago.

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