The Lord has a way of healing the deepest wounds from all the years of hardships, and He does it in two ways. Consider the life of Joseph. After years of betrayal, slavery, and prison, he named his firstborn son Manasseh, declaring, “God has made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house” Genesis 41:51.
Once God brought him out of prison and set him as governor of Egypt. God made him forget all the years of adversity, hardship and great pain. He cured the deepest wounds and freed him from his old baggage of the past. The pain that once defined his past no longer had the power to determine his future. What suffering had written into his story, God’s grace was now rewriting with redemption and restoration.
Then came a second son, Ephraim, and with him a second testimony: “God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction” Genesis 41:52. God did more than erase or cleanse the memory of Joseph’s suffering. He made that very place of hardship a place of blessing and growth.
So it is with us. The same God who makes us forget the burdens of past wounds, is the One who makes us fruitful in the same land of affliction. In His hands, no pain is wasted, no tear is forgotten, and no barren season is beyond the power of His restoration. He does not only help us forget; He makes us fruitful in the land of affliction.