Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our Reading titled God Redeems Our Pain, was written by Karen Huang.

Olive watched her friend loading her dental equipment into his car. A fellow dentist, he'd bought

the brand new supplies from her. Having her own practice had been Olive's dream for years,

but when her son Kyle was born with cerebral palsy, she realized she had to stop working to care

for him. If I had a million lifetimes, I'd make the same choice, my friend told me.

But giving up dentistry was difficult.

It was the death of a dream.

We often go through difficulties we can't understand.

For Olive, it was the heartache of her child's

unexpected medical condition and relinquishing her own ambitions. For Naomi, it was the heartache

of losing her entire family. In Ruth Chapter 1, verse 21, she lamented, The Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.

But there was more to Naomi's story than what she could see.

God didn't abandon her.

He brought restoration by providing her with a grandson, Obed.

Obed would not only carry on the name of Naomi's husband and son,

but through him she would be a relative of an ancestor of Jesus himself.

God redeemed Naomi's pain.

He also redeemed Olive's pain by helping her begin a ministry for children with neurological conditions.

We may experience seasons of heartache, but we can trust that as we obey and follow God, he can redeem our pain.

In his love and wisdom, he can make good come out of it.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Ruth, Chapter 2,

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