Our Identity and Help in Suffering

Jack Miller writing to a man whose wife had recently left him:

We do mean to urge you not to take your identity from your suffering and having been made a victim, even a mutilated one. That is what has happened to you, but it is not your identity. Your identity is defined in Ephesians as being in Christ. You are first of all defined by your being in union with your most faithful friend, even the Son of God, who saw you perishing in your sin and blindness and then gave His precious life for you. He sees all of us as betrayers of His love, grace, and laws. And yet he found it in His great loving heart to die for the treasonous, faithless ones. For me and for you.

Do remember your identity. Soak in Ephesians if you will. See yourself as a new person. Hurt and wounded, yes, but not controlled by that hurt, but controlled by your Savior in whom you live and move and have your being. I don't have any great counseling formulas, only Jesus. Only Jesus, Gary. Remember Jesus and see yourself, your wife, and your family from that standpoint. (p. 289)